“Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.” Hebrews 3:1 NIV
I take a medication that has a side effect of causing blindness. Each year I get my annual eye exam. This year I was required to do a specialized test called a visual field test. Yesterday, I went for that appointment.
The woman administering the visual field explained the test to me, “Rest your chin here, lean forward, and look at the orange light. You cannot take your eye off the orange light. You will see red lights flashing all around, each time you see one, click this button.” She handed me a small rectangular thing with a button on one end connected to a cord. It felt like I was going to play a video game, remember the old Atari or Sega with a controller with a cord.
“Don’t look at the red lights no matter how tempting it is, just keep looking at the orange light.”
“What if I do look at the red light?” I asked. I know my-ADHD-self, I could easily get distracted and look for the red lights. In fact, now I sort of wanted to look at the red lights.
“You will have to start the test over if you look away more than three times.”
I took the controller in my right hand, rested my chin on the chin rest, and leaned in until I could see the orange light. Did I mention I had a patch on the other eye?
The test started and I was determined to look only at the orange light. Let me tell you, it was distracting to see those red lights flashing, but I didn’t want to start the test over. At one point I felt my eye slowly looking down. “Oh no, I think I looked down,” I told her.
“No, you didn’t, you’re doing great!”
After a few minutes, somewhere between three and six minutes, my right eye was finished and I moved on to the left eye. I didn’t have to start that eye over either. Yipee! I paid my copay and went home.
Don’t you think our walk with the Lord is like the visual field test? The author of Hebrews tells us to “fix your thoughts on Jesus.”
So many things can come into our minds to distract us. We can find ourselves thinking all sorts of things that will take our focus off Jesus and onto them. Friends, I urge you to put your focus on Him.
I know that when those red lights were flashing, I wanted to look at them. I wanted to take my focus off the orange light and fix it on the red flashes. The red flashes bounced all around. Had I started focusing on the red flashes my eye would have been moving to the left, wait now it’s up to the right, another to the right, and now back down in the far left corner.
When we take our focus off Jesus we can’t seem to find anything to focus on. Jesus is constant, He doesn’t move around or make us chase Him. No, He is right there in the center of our line of vision.
While taking the test I started trying to guess where I thought the next flash would happen. There were two in a row off to the right, maybe the next one will be up or maybe to the left. In my own life, I do that same thing. I start thinking about where the next bad thing will happen that I need to worry about.
Stop it! Stop worrying about what may never happen. Stop trying to be two steps ahead of where you are now. Put your focus on Jesus. As distracting thoughts enter your mind, make a decision to not worry. Say aloud if you have to, “I’m focusing on Jesus.”
Focusing on Jesus may not cause the distractions or worries to disappear but it will keep us focusing on Him only.
Today, “fix your thoughts on Jesus.”