With Christmas past and the new year looming, all of us have the opportunity to make a new start.  Most of us have areas of our lives that we aren’t entirely satisfied with, why keep doing the same things?

I’m not really talking about the traditional “New Year’s Resolutions” here, because as most of us have discovered, they really don’t work all that well.  I think the reason for that is that they are an attempt to deal with a symptom of something, rather than dealing with the underlying problem.

Now I guess that is a big statement to make; what ‘underlying problem’?

Here’s a theory:  Most of us have a problem with focus.  Here’s what I mean:

Are you focused on good things?  Are you focused on others, on your relationships, family, job…?  Are you focused on your relationship with Jesus Christ?

You see, most of us are focused on a lot of things at once; so many in fact that we really aren’t focused on anything.  ‘Focus” tends to be exclusionary, that is to say that if we are focused on one thing, the others slip…

There’s one exception to this rule; our focus on our relationship with Jesus Christ.  If we are focused on our relationship with Jesus Christ, the other necessary areas of focus will not slip, but rather we will be motivated to do all of them better.  If we focus on our relationship with Christ, our relationships with other people will improve, our job performance will improve and our entire outlook on life will improve.  The only area of focus that will slip is in being focus on self… that will begin to wither, and maybe that’s the part that will allow us to live a better life.

I don’t know about you, but my strategy for being a better human being in the new year will be to focus on Jesus Christ!