Focus: The Seer
- For some of us, the problem isn't that we don't have any dreams; it's that we have way too many dreams or that all we have are dreams. We just live in our dreams rather than actually live out our dreams. (pg. 124)
- ...we simply find ourselves fickle in our passions, desires, and dreams. There's so much we want to do, so many possibilities, so many things that burn within us that we end up in danger of choosing a lesser life than the one God desires for us. We end up falling into the category of dreamer, which is often a polite way of saying "idealist who never actually does anything." (pg. 124-125)
- I don't know if you have people who know you and invest in your life and journey, but a roomful of people like that brings a lot of insight and clarity into your life. (pg. 126)
- We live in a world that tells us we should know something about everything. You should be a generalist, not a specialist....The Renaissance person knows about everything. The problem, of course, is you can't know everything, so you learn a little bit about a lot of things. (pg. 127)
- You've been trained to believe that lack of focus is the key to success. (pg. 128)
- ...the tough choices aren't between good and evil, but between all the equally good options out there that are simply not the right paths for you. You have to allow even beautiful dreams to die when they are not supposed to be yours. (pg. 128)
- The more you can lock in to who God has created you to be--your unique gifts, talents, passions, intelligence, all the stuff God has poured into you--the more you'll begin to understand your unique place in human history. (pg. 129)
- When you're about to drown in a storm, you're really open to God and to whatever he might want to say to you. (pg. 130)
- ...why we lose our focus in life. We get distracted by our surroundings and circumstances and everything happening around us, and they pull our attention away from where we are supposed to be going. The nemesis of focus is distraction. (pg. 131)
- He (Peter) still lost sight of where God was leading him and allowed his circumstances to pull him off course. When Peter took his eyes off Jesus, his life potential was diminished, and he began drowning in his inadequacy. As talented as you may be, you cannot walk the road God has prepared for you without him. To follow him is to live in his strength. (pg. 132)
- When Peter took his eyes off Jesus, he was overwhelmed not by the storm but by his fear. (pg. 133)
- We justify our loss of focus with the excuse that God is invisible. You can't see or hear him; it's easier to trust in the world you can see and feel. But Peter had God visible, physical, tangible, right in front of him, and even that didn't make the difference. Part of what costs us the life we are created to live is that we don't lock in. We lose focus because we become distracted by our circumstances. (pg. 133)
- If you resolve to live the life of your dreams, if you refuse to settle for a life other than the one God created you to live, you're going to see the waves and the wind. And it's going to terrify you and you're going to begin to sink. You have to decide to focus and lock in on the direction God has called you to live your life. This first step in getting focused could be described as concentration. Concentration is directing all of our energies and resources to a specific task, idea, and direction. So to focus, you have to make this adjustment--to concentrate all of your energy and resources on where you are going. Set your eyes on where God is calling you and don't look back (and certainly don't look around). (pg. 135-136)
- When Jesus calls us to come, he is calling us out into a future we cannot walk without him. (pg. 136)
- Somehow everything Jesus needed to do, he did. (pg. 138)
- If you don't have a purpose for your life, there are plenty of people who will be happy to give you theirs. (pg. 139)
- What sometimes is hard for us to accept is that Jesus Christ, when he came into the world, didn't come to do everything in that moment. He came to do the most important things. He came to do what no one else could do on our behalf. Jesus came into this world and offered his life as a sacrifice for us so that through his death on the cross, we enter into relationship with God himself. (pg. 140)
- The tragedy is if you try to be everything and do everything, you may so diffuse your effect that you will not optimize who God made you to be and what he created you to accomplish. (pg. 141)
- Self-awareness is one of the most critical characteristics of personal effectiveness and productivity. Do you know who you are? (pg. 141)
- What Jesus was doing at the age of twelve was becoming the person that could handle what he needed to do at the age of thirty-two--and especially at the age of thirty-three. (pg. 143)
- After learning the hard way, I keep reminding myself, if I have to make a decision before I'm ready, just say no. I've made my worst decisions when I was put on the spot. (pg. 144)
- Life comes at you fast and hard, with multiple options and opportunities and with endless variety and variations. If you do not know who you are and who you are becoming, if you do not have your hot center fueled by your core values, you will over and over again make wrong choices. Life rarely sends you a warning shot. (pg. 144-145)
- Clarity comes from knowing who you are and what really matters to you. (pg. 145)
- We often think of God's will more as a tightrope than a compass. (pg. 145)
- It's amazing how negative emotions and attitudes like bitterness, jealousy, hatred, unforgiveness, fear, or arrogance can skew your view of the world, blind you to the potential of your life, and turn your dreams into a nightmare. (pg. 148)
- Sin and guilt and shame are not where God wants you to focus your life. He wants you to focus on the unique nature of your creation--that you're created in the image and likeness of God, that you have infinite value to God, and were designed by God to live a life beyond your wildest imagination. (pg. 148)
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