Focused Life

The Power of a Focused Life

By Rick Warren

“Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty” (Proverbs 21:5 NLT).

If you want God to use you in great ways, you need focus. The more focused you are, the more effective you’ll be—and the more God will use you.

There’s awesome power in a focused life. Diffused light doesn’t have much of an effect on what it touches. But when you focus light—like the rays of the sun through a magnifying glass—you can ignite a piece of paper or grass. If you can focus it even more, it becomes a laser. A laser can cut through steel and destroy cancer.

The same is true with your life. If you’re directionless, you’ll just drift through without much impact. But if you focus on a few key goals, then you can make a powerful impact on the world for God.

The Bible says, “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty” (Proverbs 21:5 NLT).

One of the great examples of focus in the Bible is the story in Genesis 24. God had promised to create a great nation through Abraham’s own family. But Abraham was getting old, and his son, Isaac, still didn’t have any kids. He wasn’t even married yet. So Abraham gave his servant a goal of finding a wife for his son. Abraham told his servant, “Don’t get a wife from the Canaanites, who live around here. Go back to my country, to the land of my relatives, and find a wife for Isaac.”

Like all good goals, the servant’s goal was clear. He knew he needed to find Isaac a wife, and he knew exactly what kind of wife to look for. He needed to find a wife from Abraham’s homeland. You’ll never reach a vague goal because you’ll never know if you’ve completed it. Abraham’s servant didn’t have that problem.

For example, if your goal is to be a better parent, that’s vague. Even if you set the goal of spending more time with your children, you’ll never really know if you’ve completed the goal.

But if you commit to spending an hour every Tuesday evening with your children, that’s specific. You’ll know whether or not you’ve completed it. Those kinds of goals can change your life.