When you look at the picture below, what do you see?
It could be an old woman or a young woman, depending on the way you look at her face.

From one angle, she has a big nose and a wide scarf and her chin is pointed down. She looks like a grandmother. But if you look at the picture from another angle, she magically morphs into a young woman, looking off to the left with a feather in her hat. (As I get older, that “other angle” is of great interest to me.)

This picture communicates without words a profound truth: where you choose to focus makes all the difference in what you see.

This has been oh so true in the election. Regardless of who you were for or against, (or maybe just “less against”), your focus made a difference in the way your ballot was filled out.
Now it can make a difference in how you live the way it turned out.

The truth is, God has never been limited to the Oval Office. It’s merely a link in a much bigger chain. It feels huge right now, but pulling back and refocusing can help us put this election into the larger context that God is still in control, and is working an agenda that is much bigger and longer-  and maybe even different- than we currently see. Our focus empowers our trust.

But this principle is not only true about the election. It can also help with the way you view your life. I talked about some of the ways focus can affect your life in my Facebook Live Video, which I did before we knew the outcome of the election. (I also did it before I knew that holding up words in a selfie video is not such a good idea. You will see why at the end). If you are on Facebook, you can find it on my author page: https://www.facebook.com/LauriePolichShort/

It is easy to become so focused on a problem or difficulty that we miss all that is happening around it. When we pull back, we can view that difficulty as part of a bigger story– and this impacts the way that we respond.
The same is true when there is something we don’t have that we desperately want. We can get over-focused on what we are missing, and take for granted the things that we have. Refocusing helps us see.

Jesus understood the importance of focus when he said “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eyes are bad, your body will be full of darkness.”

On this day after the election, it’s good to be reminded that our eyes can derail or empower us.
Choose well what you see.