Change Your Focus – Overcoming Anxiety and Fear

Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

─ Matthew 6:25 ESV

Back in the 1970s, Albert Bandura, a social psychologist, developed a social learning theory about how children learn. He pointed out that children imitate what they see from you, as a parent.

Now the research shows more and more that children who watch violence, focusing on things like vicious video games or cruel television, act out more in the home, school and society. They prove to be less sensitive to the pain of other people. They’re more fearful and more aggressive as they grow up.

And like children, we also become what we focus on. If you pay attention to the things you fear, you’re going to be more fearful. If your focus remains on things that generate anger, you’ll experience more anger in your life.

In our verse today, Jesus encourages us not to worry. Don’t set your heart on what you will eat or drink. Don’t worry about it, for the world runs after such things and your father knows that you need them. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33 ESV).

If you wrestle with fear and anxiety, change your focus. Don’t be focused on the things that create fear but focus on the Truth. Look at the things going on that are good and positive. Sure, it’s easy to focus on what’s not going right in your life, but you can intentionally choose to focus on what is going right.

Today’s One Thing

Look at Philippians 4:8, for positive things you can be thinking about. Make a list of what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely or commendable and keep that list before you today. Give God thanks for all these things.

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