Hebrews 12 encourages us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus so that we can reach our goal. This reminds me of driving a car, where at the beginning you also have to learn to look far ahead, and not directly on the road in front of you. No matter if there is a bend in the road, you need to focus on the goal in a distance. Then you drive well and keep the track.
The same goes for running: it's not good to look at your own feet. Then you stumble even more! And it's the same with my life: I want to look ahead. Fix my eyes on Jesus. On my goal.
A few years ago, I read a biography about Lillias Trotter. She was a missionary in Algeria, at the end of the 19th century, and ahead of her time in many aspects as a woman and missionary. She did many drawings and writings. One is called "Focused" where she writes about what it means to keep one's eyes firmly fixed on Jesus. She compares focusing on Jesus with photography, which was still quite new at the time. When photographing, you have to decide what to focus on. Do I want the people (or the flower) in the front to be sharp? Then the back becomes blurred. Or do I want the blade of grass in the front to be out of focus and the mountains in the back to be sharp? It's a matter of focusing. What do I want to point out?
Helen Howarth Lemmel was so impressed by this picture that she wrote a song about it in 1918: "Turn your eyes upon Jesus". Helen has written more than 500 hymns, most of them after she lost her eyesight and also her husband, who could not handle her illness. "Turn your eyes upon Jesus" is her most famous piece and it is still sung a lot today. There are also very nice modern versions on YouTube.
Focusing on Jesus helps us reach our goal. Even in difficult situations. In stress and chaos.
This reminder to fix my eyes on Jesus helps me especially when I am socializing a lot. There is so much to hear, talk and look at, plus my own thoughts and the fear of not belonging or saying something wrong. Stress and sensory overload. But I can learn to choose my focus wisely: by focusing my heart on Jesus. Everything else, including me, is then blurred and dimmed. I see Jesus, his love for me, and my innermost being becomes calm and secure, even in the loud hubbub or chaos of the world around me. I can choose my focus, like photographers do!
I may not always be successful in doing so and it is probably also a matter of practice, but this picture helps me. And when I fall on my nose and sink into chaos again, I know that Jesus will help me and put me back on the right track again. Because He has promised that He will finish this race I´m in, just as He began it in me. It does not depend on me whether I reach my goal! I just have to look at Jesus. On what He has done for me on the cross.
And all around us there is a cloud of witnesses who inspire and encourage us. People who cheer us on on our way with God. So many different people who have blessed us since we were little. This race is not a race in which we compete with each other. Every one of us shall reach the goal and we can cheer each other on: Turn your eyes upon Jesus!
Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we´re in.
Hebrews 12: 2
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face.
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
in the light of his glory and grace.
(Helen Howarth Lemmel, 1918)