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Happy New Year, my friends. I know it’s now February. Wow, where did January go? But this is my first post of 2022. I’m so looking forward to this year.

Where is our Focus?

A new year often brings new beginnings, new hopes, new challenges. Often it simply brings more of the same just in a new year. We can get caught up in channelling our focus and our thoughts on newness or on the existing. For those of us who can grapple with anxiety or worry, we can continue to allow ourselves to focus on the worries or the fears or the things that are making us anxious.

For many of us SUMites, the mismatched nature of our marriage will often feature prominently in our thoughts. Will 2022 be the year we see breakthrough? Will our partner find the Lord? And what if they don’t?

May I encourage you to simply take a few moments now (yes, stop reading this post) and simply ask the Lord to help you see what are some of the thoughts that are pre-occupying you at present? Why not jot them down.

The Enemy is a liar!

The Devil is a liar! John 8:44 tells us this. He will happily engage our minds with worries and fears that are simply … lies. I was reminded of this last week when I read a lovely post from Corrie Ten Boon¹. She wrote of a day she was convinced she was coming down with the flu. It was also effecting her eyes as she was struggling to see properly. Corrie had to give a talk and was so consumed by her fear that she didn’t do it well.

“It is impossible to listen to the Lord’s voice while listening to our own fear. Fear is loud, insistent and time-consuming.”

That statement just hit me between the eyes. Because fear is just like that, isn’t it?

To conclude Corrie’s story, her secretary who had been sick happened to listen to her talk. Corrie was surprised to see her as she thought she’d be home in bed. But her secretary realised she had Corrie’s glasses by mistake and wanted to exchange them. They swapped glasses and ‘miraculously’ Corrie’s symptoms disappeared. She had been wearing the wrong glasses.

“When we agree with fear, our symptoms continue … instead of partnering with my symptoms, if I would have sought the Lord, perhaps I would have noticed Him pointing to what was really happening.”

Ever partnered with your fears, worries or symptoms?

Shift our Focus

Worry, fear and anxiety mean our hearts and minds are focused on something else. Jesus asks us to focus on Him. That doesn’t necessarily mean that our circumstances will change, it just means that we are able to hear from Him in our circumstance.

I love reading the Psalms, especially David’s. They express all our emotions: fear, worry, ecstasy, joy, peace and so on. David, as we know, did great things but also some not-so-great things. Often, he struggled when he’d taken his eyes off the Lord.

Psalm 16 is a wonderful psalm of hope. I particularly appreciate these words:

"I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
    With him at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest secure" (v 7-9)

He reminds us that when we keep our focus on the Lord we will not be shaken.

For many of us in mismatched marriages, we keep questioning why it’s taking so long, what do we need to do different or better. We might also worry about the things we feel we can’t do because of our partner won’t like it and it can all get a little overwhelming. Can’t it?

But Jesus simply asks us to shift our focus. Stop thinking about the worries, the issues, the shortcomings, the why nots, and start looking at Him. And not to take our eyes off Him.

Next time I will share a little on how we can shift our focus. How can we develop greater discipline in keeping our eyes on Jesus. In the interim, may I encourage you to spend time reading a Psalm of David’s. 16 or 91(probably written by Moses) or 23 are great places to linger. Linger. Spend a week, a month just lingering on the psalm. And pray them like a prayer, put yourself in David’s shoes.

Grace and peace, my friends.

1. Corrie Ten Boom, God is My Hiding Place: 40 Devotions for Refuge and Strength (Chosen Books, Minneapolis, 2021), 101.