Focus Friday: Sometimes Our Focus Changes

As I write this week's Focus Friday post, I'm sitting in the wonderful new Learning Commons at my alma mater: Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. I've spent most of the day touring the campus and talking to students, professors, and the admissions counselor here. Oh, it's not for me! I've been here, done that. It was great, but this time I was checking out the college with my son, Blake. He's a junior and he's starting to consider options for college. We had a good visit, but we'll have to see whether this is the place he ultimately chooses for his college experience.

As I thought about this blog post, my mind settled on a couple of truths we can think about together this week.

First of all, we need to realize that our earthly focus will change as we go through different seasons of life. Right now Gary and I are starting to focus on career choices and colleges as we get ready to help one of our children transition from home to higher education. We've done it twice before when our daughters graduated from high school, but every time it takes some intense focus as we think about where they'll go, applying for financial aid, and getting ready to move.

When our children were young, our focus was so much different. Back then it was: diaper changes, teething, potty training, and teaching them to talk. At each stage of each child's growth, our focus changed a little bit. If we were still focused on potty training at the ages they are now (21, 19, 16, and 13), well, it would just be weird!

As my children have gotten older, I've been able to change my focus to more of my dreams and goals because I have more free time. My kids don't require as much of my focused attention, so I can focus on writing and other pursuits.

One focus that should remain constant throughout our lifetime is our focus on God. As we focus more and more on Him, He'll help us determine where our earthly focus should be. I'm still figuring some of this out, but it seems true that when we take our focus away from Him, we get confused about where our focus should be in the rest of our life. That's when we start to get messed up and we can start to flounder spiritually and emotionally. Let's not ever take our focus away from God.

Can you see where your earthly focus has shifted over the years? What is your focus on right now? Through it all, has your focus on God remained consistent?