Our focus determines our balance; even when our eyes are closed

If you read this blog regularly, you might remember a few months ago a blog I wrote about balance. The entry was entitled, “Our Focus Determines Our Balance”. Essentially, the idea was that we don’t balance ourselves by effectively managing all the different facets of our life, but we balance ourselves by placing our focus on Christ and the goal to which He has called us. I wrote about a stretch that we do in our weekly bootcamp class, where we have to stand on one foot while holding the other foot behind our back to stretch our quads. The trick to maintaining your balance during the stretch is to pick out an object off in the distance and focus your eyes on it. If you keep your focus on that object, your mind and body will naturally balance themselves. On the other hand, if you try focus on your legs and your feet, you will wobble and fall over.I have recently had a deeper revelation of this truth, because over the past few months our trainer has been pushing us to close our eyes during that stretch. I don’t know if you have ever tried to do a quad stretch standing on one leg with your eyes closed, but I can assure you that it is not easy. For the first month or two I had no success. I could hold my balance with my eyes opened, but as soon as I closed them I would start to fall.Eventually, I was reminded of the post I had written on this blog, and how maintaining my focus on the object in front of me helped me keep my balance. Then I realized that I could still focus on that object without physically seeing it. That is when I tried a new technique. With my eyes open, I would focus on an object in the distance intently, until I could actually conjure up the vision of it even with my eyes closed. Then, when my eyes were closed and I could not physically see that object, I could still keep my focus on the thing that was keeping me balanced. It kept me from getting distracted by the things that would ultimately cause me to fall.As I am writing this, I am reminded of the apostle Peter when he walked on water. When Jesus was his focus, Peter walked on the water just like Him. However, when Peter’s focus shifted to the wind and waves he began to sink. We live in a fallen world with a very real spiritual enemy. Even those of us who are saved by the blood of Jesus are not protected from the wind and waves. In fact, we will sometimes see higher winds and bigger waves, because the enemy wants to make us sink and render us ineffective for Christ. However, if we have such a deep image of Christ forged into our spiritual site, He can remain our focus even when the wind and the waves blur our physical site.There is nothing more valuable in this life than an unshakeable image of Christ and who we are in Him. The more time we spend in His presence, in His word, and reaching out to serve others in His name, the more the image of Christ is burned into our spiritual eyes. Then when the wind and waves of life come after us to steal our vision and take our focus off of Christ, our spiritual eyes will not get distracted and lose their focus. We can remain balanced even with our eyes closed, because our spiritual eyes can remain forever fixated on the one thing that can empower us to walk on water. Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal (Isaiah 26:3-4).