Marathoner or sprinter, the athlete runs with focus, keeping the goal ever in view.
The best kinds of changes tend to often happen over time. Changes of character, changes of growing into the kind of person one is trusting or hoping to become. As we shift our attention from our own selves redirecting our spiritual gaze to the person of Jesus (the power source of a transformed life) a lot of old, unprofitable things begin simply dropping away.
Once the sprinter hears the crack of the starting gun her focus is laser-like. One thing alone matters. The finish line. Even when circling the track at points where the finish tape is momentarily out of view, the athlete keeps in some way holding that image constantly before her mind’s eye.
In my broken state as a teen I had been fixated on me. . . my wants, my self-centered ego. One Old Testament prophet casts a flood light about the soul, “We have turned – every one – to his own way”.*
Finally, in all the mess of my self-inflicted pain, I looked away to God (memo: prayers of mothers are underrated). And right away, then and there, my head turned his way, a curious thing called wisdom started taking form. Redirecting my line of vision. A radical shift in focus had happened, spurred from the aching heart of a wayward teen. turned me Jesus’ direction. I didn’t know it but he would soon be positioning before a new starting block. What a run lay ahead!
Anyone who has ever competed in a race – even a childhood dash to be first to the ice cream truck – feels a heart-stir in a brief reading from an old Hebrew parchment. Note, in the appeal, the object of the athlete’s focus, the disciple’s gaze.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV)
©2022 Jerry Lout *Isaiah 53:6