Where is your fixation?

Have you ever met someone who had a fixation with diet, fitness, shopping, or shoes, for that matter? People with an obsessive interest in something.

All they can think about, talk about, and spend money on is the very thing they have an obsession for. It can be funny, it can be worrisome.

I am not pointing fingers, we all have been there in one way or another.

Nowadays, fixation goes much further than wanting a certain pair of shoes. It plays out on a grander scale, a global scale even. Obsession with political and socio-economical matters, the climate, world population, ideologies, wars and rumors of wars. There is no end to the issues of life that are crying out for our attention.

Although all these issues can be more or less important to keep life on this planet enjoyable, they can also divert our attention, our fixation if you like, from what really matters!

👉The Bible tells us quite plainly how to stay focused and how to keep the peace (or: how not to go crazy):

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! (Isaiah 26:3).

I like that. I must keep my thoughts fixed on God, not on circumstances, not on the news, not even on tomorrow. When I pray, meditate, or read the Bible, I keep my thoughts fixed on Him.

Do I know what is going on in the world? Yes, of course I do. But my fixation is not there. The apostle Paul wrote about this exact same issue in 2 Corinthians 4:1,

So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Think about that. It sounds crazy to fix our gaze (our eyes, our fixed look, our thoughts) on things that cannot be seen. From a rational point of view that seems impossible, if not foolish. But from a spiritual point of view, it is quite normal. Paul again (I believe he got it):

Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8).

I'll do my best!