Shifting Our Focus

Consecration:

• The action of making or declaring something sacred

• To make holy or dedicate to a higher purpose

• Anointing. Devoting. Dedicating. Hallowing.

When I searched the word “consecration” on the internet, these were some of the various definitions and descriptions that popped up. But if I’m being completely truthful, up until recently the only thing the word signified to me was five days out of each year to be dreaded.

For those of you who don’t know what I mean by this, here’s why. At the beginning of every new year our church collectively takes five days to “un-plug,” or at least that’s how I describe it in my head.

It’s a week dedicated to shifting our focus. Rather than spending countless minutes and hours occupying ourselves with entertainment, we push it all to the side. Instead of picking up a TV remote, we pick up a Bible. Instead of turning on a movie, we turn on an online church service. Instead of sending hundreds of texts to our friends, we talk to God. You get the idea.

And it doesn’t stop there. In fact, some would say this is the easiest part.

We change what we eat too, sometimes choosing not to eat at all. Yes, I’m being literal. No food for five days. None.

We starve every part of ourselves consumed with trivial and temporary things. We take a step back, allowing us to see past our monster-sized flesh and its perpetual demands, and give our spirit a little breathing room. And then our spirit takes that much-needed deep breath, and we realize we’ve spent too much time suffocating it, whether that be intentional or not.

It’s a grueling process, but all the worthy ones are.

Even still, it’s a process I find myself dreading each new year. It can be hard to get yourself ready for such an uphill battle like this. I start to tell myself that maybe this fast, this detox isn’t as necessary as I once believed. Maybe my spirit is already strong enough to resist all of life’s temptations.

What’s that phrase? If you tell a lie enough times, pretty soon you start to convince yourself that it’s the truth…

Maybe It’s because I’m older, or maybe it’s because in my heart I knew I needed it more, but the last couple years I wanted to approach it differently. I wanted to see it as something to learn from rather than something to dread. To see it for what it’s meant to be. This doesn’t mean I instantly felt excited for it, because I definitely did not. I wasn’t that naïve. But I think I was beginning to obtain a clearer perspective.

And it was then that my focus began to shift.

You see, I always assumed this week of consecration was simply meant to help us grow closer to God, to spend more time with Him. It wasn’t until after things finally came into focus that I understood there was much more to it than that. Though I couldn’t quite put it into words yet.

At least not until I looked up what the word “consecration” truly meant. (I suppose the internet really can be right sometimes).

After summing all the definitions into what I found to be the most accurate, I understood that to consecrate means: To make Holy.

• 1 Peter 1:16 – “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”

• 2 Timothy 1:9 - "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Here’s where everything started to click. He’s called us for a higher purpose, a heavenly purpose. We can’t fulfill this if we can’t prove to Him we can handle it, that He can trust us with it. And the only way to prove this is by surrendering our will over to His. Dedicating ourselves, in a way (Remember this was one of the terms for consecrating).

As Christians, we’re meant to stand out from the rest of the world. We look different. We act differently. We are different. But if our heart and spirit don’t reflect this outward appearance, there’s nothing genuinely different about us at all.

This doesn’t mean we have to be perfect. Holiness does not equal perfection, at least not for humanity. Our job is to continually strive to be holy and trust that God will reach the heights that we can’t. He is the only one that has both the ability and the capacity to complete us like this. We look to Him for the strength and guidance to follow the path He’s laid out before us.

I’ve found it easier to walk this path when I make it personal. The verse above (2 Timothy 1:9) says He’s called “us”. That means me.

That means you.

He has a higher calling for our lives, our ministries, and our futures. He has a purpose. We have a purpose. We have from the very beginning. Knowing this can make it easier to resist everything the world has to offer. It won’t even look appealing. Nothing the world can give us could ever come close to what God’s already won for us.

They try to make us accept the notion that their way of living is something to be embraced and celebrated. They convince young and vulnerable minds by masking their lies with all these pretty and care-free words. They don’t rip off that mask until after they’ve swayed them into believing that they’ll become free in their grasp.

Their goal is to capture us with this illusion that the darkness of the world is the only way we can “find” ourselves. I don’t know about you, but typically it’s a lot trickier to find something with the lights off.

What exactly is darkness anyway?

It is simply the absence of light. It is not its own entity and therefore cannot make anything free. The more tangled we get in the shadows, the more we realize this. So whatever darkness we feel inside can disappear instantaneously when we let God’s light in.

He’ll shine a light on the deepest, murkiest and ugliest pit inside of us and turn it around to use it for His good. And for our good. I guarantee that nothing and no one else will ever be able to do that.

A change of focus can bring this true clarity to our lives. A clarity that we can’t possess if we don’t take the time to consecrate ourselves. Now the battle is to keep this focus and fight against distractions, because that alone can be just as trying.

• “What the devil can’t destroy, he will distract.”

I’ve heard this quote so many times by so many people that I’ve forgotten who originally said it, but I’ve never forgotten the power behind it.

That is why a week of consecration can be so vital and life-changing. Just one week out of fifty-two of them. There are distractions all around us and if we let it happen, these distractions will become a lifestyle.

But if we consecrate ourselves, if we choose to become holy, we will be living out our calling. And for those of us that are still searching for direction and purpose, consecration is the first step to figuring that out. It pushes aside all the confusion and uncertainty that comes with being human so that we can actually hear what God is trying to tell us. Maybe we’ve been praying this long, repetitive prayer and growing more frustrated by the minute when we don’t seem to get an answer. But maybe we just couldn’t hear it. All the TV, music, social media, and everything else we became consumed with was too loud to hear anything else.

All that is, all it’ll ever be, is a distraction from what we were created to do.

If we choose to live a holy, consecrated lifestyle, we’ll soon find missing pieces falling into place. Mountains will be moved. Questions will be answered. Chains will be broken. The list could go on forever.

Though nothing can be entirely perfect, we’ll realize that it doesn’t have to be. Not after a change in focus.

This clarity I’ve gotten just a glimpse of, I pray to never become distracted from again.

It’s time to shift our focus to The Holy One. To be holy as He is holy.