Fix Your Eyes

I've shared before that I struggle from motion sickness.  Really.  Bad.  Motion sickness.  My stomach turns a little even as I write those words. It's always been a problem for me, but it has gotten worse as I get older. I've tried everything to remedy it, but it appears to not be going away.

While I can't make it better, I certainly know how to make it worse.  Coffee, for one, seems to aggravate my stomach.  Whenever I fly or prepare for a long road trip, I try to avoid coffee.  That, of course, is difficult because those seem to be the days I need it the most. Fortunately, there are other sources of caffeine.

I've also learned that I can't look down, especially in the car.  I have about a ten second window that I can look down (if I'm not driving) at phone or GPS device.  After that, forget it!  Reading in the car? No way.  I'd die.

Ok, maybe I wouldn't die, but I'd be miserable.

I've learned to keep my eyes set on what is before me.

The writer of Hebrews uses a similar concept to encourage the early believers in their faith.  He writes:

Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2, NASB).

I'm the tall caveman in the back.

Running? I've done some, but I haven't received any formal training.  However, dancing is another story. It surprises a lot of people that I was a dancer in high school.  I knew I was never going to be a professional dancer, but for the most part I was able to do what I was expected to do. I knew what I could and what I could not do.

I always struggled with the pirouette. I could fake it, but I couldn't master it. That whole "pick something to focus on" trick that they teach you, I understood it conceptually but it didn't seem to do much to help me. I'd start with my eyes focused on something, but the spin would make it hard to find it again. I knew what I was supposed to do, but it never got easier.  I do one turn, but never two.

With my faith, too, I am at first easily focused. Then life spins me around and I've lost all sense of direction. Where'd my mark go? Was that one spin or two? Why am I so disoriented? It's not supposed to be this hard, is it?

Friend, yes.  Life is hard. I can't say it enough.  I wish someone had sat down with me when I was younger and explained to me that, though things change, they never get easy.  At least, not the kind of easy we expect.

We need to continue learning to look only at Jesus because life will never stop spinning us around.