Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off of his goal. E. Joseph Cossman
Say you are a track and field star and your event is the hurdles. (You have to pretend it's you because it certainly isn't me. And if you know me well you are nodding your head enthusiastically in agreement! HA!) I know just enough about hurdles to know this - if you don't keep your eyes focused ahead of you while also taking in where the next hurdle is to leap over, you will be kissing pavement quicker than you can blink. The hurdler's eyes must stay on the goal, the finish line, while also being just enough aware of the obstacle he/she has to get over without making contact with the pavement. If their eyes stray from the goal for any length of time all they see in front of them is the hurdle and that will trip them up - literally and figuratively. Something in our brains takes in the obstacle in front of us and convinces us, and perhaps our feet, that we can't get over it. Hello road rash.
So, because I'm me let's translate this to life and the heart shall we?
In life we must keep our hearts focused forward while also taking in where obstacles in our journey are going to pop up. If we don't have a healthy awareness of both we are going to be kissing a pit quicker than we thought we could fall into it. We'll get all tripped up and before we know it our hearts are marked with the road rash of life obstacles. When we keep our hearts looking forward we can overcome the obstacles that present themselves because we haven't lost sight of the bigger picture, we haven't lost sight of our goal. And in life we are going to have many goal lines/marks. If we allow our hearts to move away from the goal all we will see is the obstacles in our way and we won't be able to hurdle them because our brains and hearts will convince us that we can't. We'll stall out, trip up and land face down.
A good hurdler knows how to recover quickly from a momentary lapse of focus and so can we. We can recover. We have to jump up, forget about the embarrassment that comes from a stumble/trip/fall, and move forward again.
So, are you going to be a hurdler?
*Yes, it's a real word and believe me - I spent a good couple of minutes Googling and making sure - it just doesn't look right and then to say it sounds weird too! But it IS legit. *wink*
Say you are a track and field star and your event is the hurdles. (You have to pretend it's you because it certainly isn't me. And if you know me well you are nodding your head enthusiastically in agreement! HA!) I know just enough about hurdles to know this - if you don't keep your eyes focused ahead of you while also taking in where the next hurdle is to leap over, you will be kissing pavement quicker than you can blink. The hurdler's eyes must stay on the goal, the finish line, while also being just enough aware of the obstacle he/she has to get over without making contact with the pavement. If their eyes stray from the goal for any length of time all they see in front of them is the hurdle and that will trip them up - literally and figuratively. Something in our brains takes in the obstacle in front of us and convinces us, and perhaps our feet, that we can't get over it. Hello road rash.
So, because I'm me let's translate this to life and the heart shall we?
In life we must keep our hearts focused forward while also taking in where obstacles in our journey are going to pop up. If we don't have a healthy awareness of both we are going to be kissing a pit quicker than we thought we could fall into it. We'll get all tripped up and before we know it our hearts are marked with the road rash of life obstacles. When we keep our hearts looking forward we can overcome the obstacles that present themselves because we haven't lost sight of the bigger picture, we haven't lost sight of our goal. And in life we are going to have many goal lines/marks. If we allow our hearts to move away from the goal all we will see is the obstacles in our way and we won't be able to hurdle them because our brains and hearts will convince us that we can't. We'll stall out, trip up and land face down.
A good hurdler knows how to recover quickly from a momentary lapse of focus and so can we. We can recover. We have to jump up, forget about the embarrassment that comes from a stumble/trip/fall, and move forward again.
So, are you going to be a hurdler?
*Yes, it's a real word and believe me - I spent a good couple of minutes Googling and making sure - it just doesn't look right and then to say it sounds weird too! But it IS legit. *wink*
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