One Decision That Makes Your Problems Powerless

• Good evening. Isn’t it a wonderful thing to be in the presence of the Lord? Can you feel him here tonight? I believe he’s moving among us, touching hearts that are heavy, looking into eyes that are tired. Some of you came in here tonight carrying a weight. You didn’t leave it at the door.
• You carried it right down the aisle with you, and you’re sitting on it now. It’s the weight of a problem. It might have a name. Sickness, lack, a broken relationship, a fear you cannot shake. And it feels so very large, doesn’t it? It occupies your thoughts from morning until night. It’s the first thing you think of when you wake and the last shadow you see before sleep.
• It has power over you. But I want to talk to you tonight about where that power comes from. It doesn’t come from the problem itself. Oh no. It comes from the focus. It comes from the magnificent terrible power of your own attention. You see, whatever you focus on, you give it the right to grow.
• It’s a law of the spirit as sure as the law of gravity. Your attention is like a magnifying glass held under the sun. You can take that glass and hold it over a dry leaf and nothing happens. But the moment you focus that beam, concentrate all that scattered light into one single brilliant white hot point. What happens? It ignites. It catches fire.
• The leaf itself didn’t change. The sun didn’t change. But the focus made all the difference. That is what you are doing with your problem. You are taking the magnifying glass of your mind and you are holding it hour after hour, day after day over this one thing. You are concentrating all your emotional energy, all your mental strength on it.
• And my dear friend, you are setting your own soul on fire with worry. You are burning a hole right through your peace. The problem may be real, yes, but its power. Its power to terrify you, to depress you, to rob you of hope and joy and strength. That power is being generated by the focused beam of your own attention.