I stink at mowing the lawn. Everything about it is aggravating to me, and my only goal is that when I'm done mowing most of the grass be shorter. Now true gardeners and landscapers would NEVER leave a lawn looking the way I do. Mostly because I can't walk in a straight line to save my life. It's not my fault. The first step to walking straight is walking, and as anyone can tell you, I'm not good at that. A friend of mine recently told me that if I wanted straight lines when mowing my lawn then what I needed to do was pick a spot on the other side of the lawn. I should walk toward it. The key point however (and this really stuck with me) was that he said to pick a point, and DON'T take your eyeball off it! Do that and you'll be fine.
To my surprise, when I followed this one simple instruction I walked in a straight line. Even when the lawn dipped or I met with a hole. My line remained straight. As long as I kept my eyeball glued to that one spot on the other side of the lawn. Of course it makes sense when you think about it. My body moved in whatever direction I fixed my gazed on.
No wonder God tells us to keep our eyes on Him!.
Just imagine how different Peter's story would have been if he hadn't looked away from Jesus. And remember that while he did - he walked on water!
"Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (From Matthew 14)
When Jesus is our focal point - we perform miracles. And this is not limited to Peter alone.
We often go through life with our eyes scattered, looking at every circumstance close to us. And let's face it - there are a lot of scary circumstances: addiction, illness, poverty, lost job or relationship, or death. Even good circumstances can distract us from looking to Jesus for direction in our life's decisions. As a result, the track we leave is just a mess. We follow the direction of our gaze right into doubt, foolishness, and terrible decisions wreaking havoc all over the path we make. If we would just keep our eyes glued to Jesus, we would always move right towards Him. I know it isn't easy, to walk that straight and narrow. But one thing I can say for sure - I've never regretted a moment that I trusted God. I can't say that about anything else.
So let's get to walkin'. And keep those eyeballs glued on Jesus!
