Posts Tagged: focus

“THE WORD FOR THE YEAR IS KINDNESS!”

On December 31, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. (Lao Tzu.  Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/kindness”)

“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”  (Colossians 3:12-13)

In 2017, my word for the year was “FOCUS!”  I’m not sure how I did, but my wife says that I have done better on focusing.  My wife is a very kind and compassionate person, but she isn’t prone to lying, so I assume that she is right.

The word for 2018 is KINDNESS.

My sponsor encouraged me some time ago to craft my own personal daily affirmations.  This year he upped the ante: He suggested that I craft a master affirmation for the entire year—one that would enrich the daily affirmations.  Below is my response to him this morning.

“I have thought about and prayed about your suggestion that I have a master affirmation for 2018.  I have decided that I like the idea a lot.  (I suspect that God likes it too.)

So, after some thought I have decided to pair it with another suggestion from a weekly newsletter I get from Jon Gordon (“Positive Tips” website.)  Gordon suggests choosing one word for the year.  . . .

The word for 2018 is “KINDNESS”.

So, with all that as preface, here is my master affirmation for the year:

THE WORD FOR THIS YEAR IS KINDNESS: KINDNESS RECEIVED AND KINDNESS GIVEN

AFFIRMATION FOR THE YEAR:  This year, by God’s grace, I am consistently kind and obedient to God, appropriately kind to myself, and kind to all living things (which includes other people).”

Of course, it is much easier to be kind to God and others, when I realize that God is kind, and that God has shown me a great deal of kindness.  And I do recognize God’s kindness, at least to some degree.  So, the first thing I need to do is to meditate on God’s great kindness to me.

But even a realization of God’s kindness and the desire to be kind are not enough.  Kindness takes daily practice.  No one learns to cook or play the piano without regular, consistent practice.  Why should kindness be any different?

I need to keep my eyes, ears, heart, and schedule open, so that I can be kind to others.  Kindness is a costly business.  Above all, it requires consistent focus.  And I can assure you that this selfish, attention-deficit-person is not good at either consistency or focus.

Who knows?  Maybe the 2017 emphasis on focus is a good preparation for 2018: The Year of Kindness!

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“And the Word for the Year is ‘Focus’”

On January 2, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I got off to a bit of a rough start in this day and this New Year.

I couldn’t find my keys for a while, and then I discovered them in the door where I had left them, when my sweetheart and I came home last night.  (Security is so important to me!)

Then, it took me three attempts to send out the daily challenges to some of my students who meet with me once a week to read the Old Testament in Hebrew.  You want to hear the details, you say?  No, you probably don’t, but I’ll tell you anyway.  After some preliminary words in the e mail, I forgot to paste the challenges in the e mail before I hit the send button.  I quickly realized the error of my ways, and prepared to send another e mail with the challenges.  I was typing an explanation as to why I hadn’t sent them the first time when I accidentally sent the e mail—without the challenges.  Finally, on the third time, I succeeded in sending the challenges.  Sending challenges proved to be quite a challenge.

Here is the irony of the situation.  Jon Gordon encourages his readers to come up with one word to set the tone for their year.  (See http://www.jongordon.com/blog/one-word-that-will-change-your-life-2/.)  It sounded like a good idea.

It took me a while, but I finally settled on the word “FOCUS.”  Perhaps focusing on focus sounded good to me because I struggle so much with staying focused on the things that really matter: my relationship with God, my devotion to my wife, being good to others and myself, using my gifts properly.

So, how do I plan to be focused?  Well, dear readers, I am open to suggestions.  But here are some things that help me stay better focused.  At least they help when I remember to practice them.

  1. Gratitude helps me to focus on what is important.  When I focus on being grateful, I tend to be more focused on what really matters to me.  Furthermore, I am more likely to be on the lookout for important things to be grateful for.  Sometimes, those important things can seem little, but they often turn out to be little components of very large and important things.
  2. Accountability to and with friends helps me to stay focused on what really matters.  Of course, my friends themselves matter.  But they also help me to realize what other things I need to focus on.
  3. Slowing down helps me to realize what is truly focus on.  If I let my life become a blur, I can’t really focus on much of anything.  However, I am responsible for my own blurry living.
  4. While they are often despised, I find to-be-and-to-do lists helpful.  I write things down, but then I need to take another step.  I need to pray and ask God what God wants me to do.  Otherwise, I may be wasting my time focusing on things that aren’t really worth the bother.

One final thought: Focus is a choice.  I have Attention Deficit Disorder, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t focus, only that it may be more difficult for me to focus.

 

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