Fix your eyes on the four little dots in the middle of this picture. Sing a verse or two of Amazing Grace or Love One Another as you stare at them, or count to 100. Then close your eyes, tip your head back slightly and see what appears under your closed eyelids. Give yourself 20 seconds to find it in your dark.
Something in the way humans are designed empowers us when we focus. For good, and for bad, we are able to ignore a lot of peripheral distractions when we fix our focus. It works just as well in climbing a summit as it does aiming for our next addicted fix.
The Apostle Peter, in the boat being pummeled by a storm, saw Jesus coming toward them right when he thought they were going down. The poor fear-worn and drenched apostles were relieved and amazed that their friend and teacher had not only come to rescue them, but he was actually walking on water. Curious, impetuous, limitless Peter went beyond being gratefully relieved and amazed. He wanted to know how it was done. He wanted to feel whatever force allowed a person to defy the laws of nature as we know them. He knew with an otherworldly assurance that if the Lord bid him to walk on water, then, by golly, he could walk on water.
And he did.
As long as his mind was fixed, he walked on water.
It was only when the waves whispered, “You cannot do this,” that he fell.
Distractions are not by nature evil. Sometimes they’re useful to keep us from fixating on harmful things. It takes a fair dose of divine guidance to know what is necessary. It takes the same source of guidance to know when fixating on something good rounds the bend and turns into something harmful. Shout out to the Holy Spirit!
At that point in the last moments of mortality, when Jesus called out to his Father, “why hast Thou forsaken me?”, was that the place where he was most able to identify with us in our vulnerability and imperfection? I wonder if the Comforter comes to us in increments, according to our eternal needs, like varying degrees of electrical current are fitting only for certain appliances in certain locations. I wonder if the Spirit ebbs and flows like the waves of the sea. Divine history tells us that there have been times of abundant Spirit in whole communities, and other times when the Spirit withdraws. Is that withdrawal part of the testing of our strength, like the tester I keep in the place where we store our batteries in the drawer in the garage? Maybe the Spirit is hovering just a little more apart from us right now, checking our reserves because something is coming and we need to be sure to be charged. I honestly don’t know.
But I do know this: I am broken. We’re all broken. We are broken but functional. Knowing that compels me to dig for hope. I need to be charged… and changed. The process will strengthen me like working out in the gym builds muscle, only I don’t like to work out, even if I should. Life is going to take me to the spiritual gym whether I want to go there or not. And my trainer? My personal trainer? I think I will recognize him when I see him face to face.
He’ll bid me come.
And I will focus.
And I will be fixed.
