In last week’s newsletter and Focus 2020 video (that you can watch by clicking here) was all about helping you focus on what’s most important in your life. I want you to have an amazing 2020! I know that you have hopes and dreams, but you also have to deal with life! When life feels like a blur, we can feel lost, stuck, and even discouraged.

Is that how you’re feeling these days? If so, keep reading because I want to share something powerful with you that helps me create powerful spiritual clarity in my life each year!

For me, one of the best things I do each January is choose a word of the year. The word that I choose captures an inner quality that I want to be intentional about in the coming year.

What’s my word for 2020? My word is FOCUS. I feel pretty good about this because the year is 2020 and having 20/20 vision is considered to be in focus, meaning that someone can see with clarity.

In order for me to find my word of the year, I opened up my Bible. I asked myself this question: What word captures who I want to be this year in order for me to do my best?

As I read through some of my favorite Bible verses, I came across one verse that has been a special verse for many decades: “Seek the kingdom above all else and live righteously and He will give you everything that you need.” (Matthew 6:33 NLT)

Seek means to crave in the original language. If you’ve ever craved something, you know that you are focused on getting it into your belly, even if you’ve got to drive all the way across town to get it!

As I read that verse and thought about my current spiritual temperature, my hopes and dreams, as well as my current circumstances, I realized that I would need to be ruthlessly intentional about staying focused on God.

For me, clarity is so important. Life can get fuzzy when we’ve got too many “yeses” on our calendar. Life gets fuzzy when we don’t have solid spiritual anchors to ground us or the urgent in our lives always gets the attention over the important.

I’ve spent many fuzzy years in the past running around like a chicken with my head cut off while doing a lot of good things. Guess what? I was always tired. I got sick often. I felt stressed out all of the time.

I don’t want to live that way in more. I don’t think that God wants me to live that way anymore.

So, for me, the word is FOCUS. And I’ve even created an acryonym:

F- Five Verses (Repeat five Bible verses each morning when I awake)

O – Optimistic (Living with hope in God)

C – Commitments (Be aware of my “yeses”)

U – Ubuntu (African word for community – maintain life-giving connections)

S – Simplicity (Follow the KISS rule for my life, Keep It Simple, Sister!)

To help me stay connected to my word of the year, I will do three things:

1. Repeat Matthew 6:33 as much as possible. When I say the verse, it will trigger me to think about my word of the year.
2. Journal about my word of the year and how I am applying it to my life.
3. Pray about it because ultimately, I will need God’s help to stay focused this year.

QUESTION: Do you have a word of the year or verse for this year? Share it with us in the comments below.