Focus, Focus

When I go to WalMart on my bicycle, I go through a very small opening in a fence.  I always used to get off my bike and walk it through the opening.  As time has gone by and as I have (re)gained experience riding, I have found the key to making it through without getting off the bike and without even slowing down.  I can zip through.  The secret is not to look at the fence, but to look at the ground.  I find the center of the ground in the fence opening and concentrate on running my front tire exactly over that spot.  I can glide through the fence like it isn’t even there.  The fence itself is nothing but a distraction.  I can’t make it safely through if I focus on the fence.

For me, that’s a parable of the Christian journey.  If we think of Christ as the center ground and we focus on Him instead of the obstacles and problems that surround us, we have the ability to make it through anything.  The problems don’t seem threatening, the obstacles don’t seem so difficult, and the challenges don’t seem so insurmountable.  2 Corinthians 4:8-10 says,

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”