Single Track Mind

When Bernie steps up to the plate in a baseball game and faces the pitcher he shuts everything else out of his mind. He is not thinking about his batting average and what this trip to bat will do to raise it or lower it, whatever happens, nor does he try to remember the games won and lost by the pitcher he is facing. He concentrates on hitting that ball just as far and just as straight as he can. In other words, he loses himself in the game.

That is what makes a winner. A player with one eye on the grandstand and the other on the scoreboard is not going to get a very good look at the ball speeding toward him. So the boy mowing grass will do a ragged job if his mind is on quitting time and his pay. The girl practicing her piano lesson will not do her best if she keeps looking out the window to see if her friends have arrived yet. She must count the time of the notes and not the number of times she has run through this one sheet of music.

Jesus said, ". . . whosoever will lose his life for my sake the same shall find it" (Matthew 16:25). This is, of course, much more important than a game of ball, but Jesus didn't expect us to go through life without having any fun. He does expect us to give our best to him and with as much energy and enthusiasm as we do when playing a game.

A follower of Christ needs to have a single-track mind. He travels in one direction only. He allows nothing to sidetrack him or swerve him from his course. He doesn't go back to the starting point for a second chance, but goes forward from where he is.

Take my life, O God, and let it belong completely to yourself.