What if you had your eyes focused on just one thing?  What would it be like if you could just run after the Lord with total abandon, and seek Him with all that you are, continually?

What if you could live with your eyes fixed on the heavenly realm, and live out of the substance of faith?  What would that look like?  Where would you end up?

Brushing aside fantasy, take a step deeper…  What is it that distracts?  What is it that pulls you away?

There are two thing absolutely for certain, God will ask more of you than you want to give, AND, He can never ask you for more than you have.  So long as we keep in mind that it only, apparently, takes two loves, five fishes, and a mustard seed of faith to feed a multitude, He will never ask you to do more than what you have, when you consider everything.

When you really get down to it, you have only about two options.  When anxiety or fear or anger come up, you simply can’t react to it.  Even the religious world has got that one figured out, although fleshly control is what the law proved was insufficient anyway.  Instead, you must process it one way or another.  You can either suppress it or face it.

Unfortunately, many people do the first, and deny to themselves that they are feeling it.  If you push it out far enough, you will get on for a while, but it will eventually come back.  Or, in that day when you’ve used up all your strength inside for something else, you wont have quite as much strength to push away the anxiety.

Jesus said that when the eye was single, the whole body was full of light (Luke 11:34).  It is in the place of singularity of vision, singularity of purpose, singularity of focus, when that is focused on Jesus, that we cannot be stopped by anything.

In fact, while many people think of anger as primarily evil, anger has the characteristic that it causes you to focus on only one thing.  When this is the wrong thing, as the verse above indicates, that is a very dark thing.  When, however, the anger is focused on something good, such as when Jesus cleansed the temple (Psalm 69:9), it was used by God for the purification of His house.

But, it is precisely what distracts you and why it does so, that is the inner workings of our hearts.  While our faith can grow, it is precisely the doubts, fears, and inconsistencies that we live with on a day-to-day basis, without observation, that make up the sand in our hearts, keeping us from that firm a foundation.

We both know ourselves too well, and not well enough.  What we see, we hide from day-to-day life, because it is painful.  What we are afraid of, we hide, in dark corners, until, one day, we trigger something, and out comes something from within.  It does not mean that it is the whole thought and motive of our heart, but it’s in there, and, short of Jesus, it makes it clean.

The way of faith, the way of discipleship, the way of the cross, loses that entire life.  It does not counsel it away, although some counsel may be used.  Rather, it grows in faith in God.  That He is a good Father, that He is able, it keeps the eyes above the soul, above the warfare, and knows that God will be there on the other side.

The greatest breakthroughs you will ever have is having done all else to stand, to stand fast in the gospel.  To not lose your confidence, nor back down, and to keep on going through.  The greatest victory you can ever have in the midst of it, simply, is Matthew 5.  To look at the storm, and to know that it’s too much for you, and to know that when you run out, God will show directly.  Promised.  And, when you realize that, in the midst of your warfare, you become happy.  You become fixed in faith, rooted and grounded in love.

Everything else takes too much effort, and requires too much labor to maintain.  Even the youths grow tired and weary, and choice young men stumble and fall, but those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength.  They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:30-31).  When you receive the Kingdom, you receive a part of Him that never goes away.  You receive a glimpse that can never be stolen.  When you see Him, you are willing to lose it all again, just for that glimpse.  For joy.

What if we could run on without wavering, without looking around, without any other hope of succor or comfort other than Him.  Then, in all honesty, we would be completely free.