Reset your focus

“I lift up my eyes to the hills.
    From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2

The start of a new year can be a great time, through prayer and fasting, to clear space to focus on your relationship with God. Life can get busy at times. There can be so many things that compete for our attention. Especially after all that 2020 and 2021 have brought our way, it can be easy to be going into this new year feeling all sorts of distraction. You may be feeling distant from God right now. Maybe 2021 disrupted a lot of your usual routines and patterns and has left you feeling out of sync in your relationship with Jesus. Maybe you have struggled to have a regular quiet time. Perhaps you got out of the habit of regular fellowship. With all that there has been to distract our focus over the past year you may well feel like you are entering 2021 having taken several steps backwards spiritually.

This season of prayer and fasting as we start a new year is a chance to reset your focus. It is an opportunity to reset your mindset, to restart habits and practices to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God, and a chance to restore that which was lost from your life over the past year. It is a chance to lift your eyes and focus not on what is going on around us, but rather to focus on the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who is our helper.

As we fast, we intentionally take our eyes off the things of the world to free up space to focus on God. Fasting isn’t merely a diet. It isn’t just about giving something up so we can feel good about ourselves for a few weeks. Fasting is about resetting our focus on God. It is about using our time more intentionally to press in to growing deeper in our relationship with Him. It is about using time freed up by fasting from TV or social media to pray and focus on His Word instead. It is about allowing physical hunger if we fast meals to remind us of our hunger for more of God. As we start this season of prayer and fasting at the start of a new year, it is an opportunity to press reset. A chance to let go of some things from 2021 that have hindered us, and to allow the Holy Spirit to reset our focus on the things that matter.

Prayer Point

Ask God to show you what you need to let go off and fast from. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you use this season to grow deeper in your relationship with God.