“You steer where you stare!”

This is the advice that motorcycle drivers receive while trying to get their unique licenses. If you don’t want to drive into the pole, then don’t stare at the pole! Turn your eyes to focus on where you want to go and then the motorcycle will steer where you’re looking. Sounds grossly simple, but in the middle of chaos and stress, it takes disciplined effort to train your eyes to make the shift.

Athlete, this same principle can be applied to your life. Where are you staring? What consumes your vision? Your life will follow your vision.

Jesus makes this powerful reminder in the Sermon on the Mount:

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23)

In this series, we’ve addressed the need for a new heart and a new mind. The byproduct of these first two is that you’ll develop new eyes. And when you see as God sees, you do as God says!

Athlete, this principle has to do with your focus. Where is your focus: on yourself, on others, on your fame, on selfish desires? Or are you focused on Jesus?

Remember when Jesus invited Peter to step out of the boat and join Him on the water? Peter did. And Peter walked on water! Amazing.

But the Bible says that when Peter saw the wind, “he was afraid and, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30)

You can’t see wind. You can feel the wind’s presence. But you can’t see it.

This is what happens when we take our focus off Jesus. We begin to make up things that can’t happen and that aren’t really there.

Stare at Jesus, and you will steer your life accordingly.

Who knows, you too might walk on water!