I was at a District Council for the Northern California and Nevada District last night.  A well-known Washington D.C. speaker ended the evening talking about something that sparked some thoughts.

It started when Mark Batterson asked the room full of church leaders if they had ever known anyone who no matter what their circumstances were they always had something negative to say?

I totally related with that.

I am that.

Even though nobody ever talks about postmodernism anymore it’s residue still lingers in the culture of the Millennials.  The good thing about the generations culture is the ability to artistically cultivate and creatively weave ideas together.

The bad thing about postmodernism is that in a culture that values thinking for oneself we can become incredibly critical.  So when we observe something or are a part of something and our first thoughts turn to judgements of disproval that is bad.  It is toxic, and this toxicity is contagious.

It’s much easier to be negative, than it is to be positive.

It’s less challenging to judge than it is to be appreciative.

We see what we want to see.

In psychology there’s something called the focusing illusion, or focusing effect.  This is a cognitive bias that occurs when people place too much importance on an aspect of an event, causing an error in accuracy on the portrayal of a situation.

Now, I believe it’s important to be realistic about reality.  Living in a cloud of mindless optimism can (I’m convinced) cause a lot more harm than good.  However without the proper balance we become a pessimistic prophet of doom spreading death instead of life.

According to this… what we assign our attention to is directly connected with our thoughts, emotions, and perspectives.

Your focus determines your reality.

The power of spreading life and death lies with where your focus is.

The question is where is your focus?

You see what you want to see.

(appeared first at 360church.net)