The One Thing

A simple magnifying glass is a great tool for taking things that appear far away and making them seem closer. The glass has a unique way of taking things too small to see clearly and making them appear larger, helping you to see them better.

But one of the most powerful uses of a magnifying glass is as a “focuser.”

When sunlight passes through the glass it becomes magnified. And when the glass is tilted in such a way to focus the beam into a single point, the light becomes powerful enough to start a fire. A simple beam of sunlight becomes unbelievably powerful through focus.

You are the same way. You can be much more powerful this year if you can focus your efforts.

In this first month of the year, the pages of the calendar yawn before me full of new opportunities and new possibilities. Often times when faced with lots of good choices I’ll try to choose several and I end up with a lot of half baked ideas and half-finished projects. My good work becomes diluted over the stretch of several half hearted attempts. After a while, I look back at a sad pile of things I’ve failed to complete or failed to do well because I tried to do too much. I’ve started many things but finished nothing.

As the new year begins, I’ve been encouraged to hold the magnifying glass up to my own life and tilt it in order to find a much finer point of focus. To help me do this I was encouraged to choose just one word, just one, that would help me refine my thoughts and actions for the coming year. Instead of being distracted by the many things, I would do much better to focus on the one thing.

So my one word is “UNDIVIDED.” With so many things to do, so many ways to go, so many choices to make, I believe God is calling me to be undivided in 2014. Don’t be distracted by the many…make the decision and then focus on that one. I believe God wants me to focus my energy in one direction and resist the temptation to do too much, diluting my energies.

How about you? If you were to choose just one word for the year to help you focus what would it be? Faith? Humility? Joy? Strength?

Take some time and think of what your one word would be. Then plaster that word on post-its and stick them all over your house, your car, your office or cube. Allow that one word to focus your thoughts and your efforts this year. Don’t come to the end of the year only to find that you tried a lot of things but you didn’t really accomplish the one thing you wanted to.