I remember some time ago being on the treadmill at the gym, and I got a bit bored of the monotony and figured the treadmill was so repetitive that I could do it with my eyes closed… so I did a rather foolish thing; I tried it! I put my hands over the safety bars (not that it helped), closed my eyes and counted to five. That was easy enough, so I tried it again, this time see if I could reach 10 seconds. What I forgot is that our eyes help us to maintain balance… by the time I got to 7 seconds I fell head over heels and ended up crumpled on the floor with my head bouncing repeatedly off the moving belt! I hurt myself (not badly) but it was nothing compared to my pride. The whole gym came to a standstill as people looked over to see what had happened. Totally embarrassed I jumped up and blurted out without thinking: “It’s alright. ‘I’m okay… I just closed my eyes for a second!”

The illustration behind this tale is this: if we take our eyes off the goal that Jesus set for us – to live holy lives, pleasing to God – we run the danger of losing our balance, of falling and injuring ourselves, or others.

R. Ian Seymour