Don't Do This On Your First Date 😳

My first “sort of real” date was with a classmate my junior year of high school. Her name was Stephanie, and it’s probably important to note that I married Stephanie - just not the Stephanie from my Junior year of high school. My wife Stephanie s is one of the sweetest, kindest, most selfless human beings to ever walk this earth. (We’ll say maybe a step or two below Jesus, but on par with Mother Teresa).

My classmate Stephanie was, in short, less so. (Somewhere above Jack the Ripper, so that’s good.)

But, she had asked me on a date. And I had never been on a date. And now I had a date. And she was kinda pretty. Yes, she was also kinda horrible, but like I said, she had asked me on a date.

Sounds like a decent plan…

I found a way to reconcile this by insisting that we bring along two of my friends from church (who I had hoped would be a good influence on this wayward soul) and made her promise to also join me at church the following morning.

For some strange reason, Not-My-Wife-Stephanie agreed to these parameters, and it was official: we were going on a date that Saturday and would enjoy an awkwardly unromantic time with Chili’s and Putt Putt and hormones and two super churchy friends there to make sure I survived the evening without becoming a teenage father or waking up missing a kidney in a sketchy hostel.

Sounded like a decent plan.

After my two churchy friends, Not-My-Wife-Stephanie, and I enjoyed some salsa and sizzling steak fajitas, we jumped in our respective parents’ vehicles and began making our way to the local mini-golf mecca. I was in a somewhat dated Ford Explorer courtesy of my momma, while Stephanie enjoyed a mint condition, cherry red Camaro on loan from her dad.

And off we went.

And I’m not going to lie; I felt pretty awesome. Me, mom’s Explorer, Stephanie and her dad’s Camaro, driving parallel around town and around curves in a vehicularly balletic dance of teenage joy and borrowed cars and raging hormones backed by an exquisite soundtrack of sappy late nineties boy bands. (Please don’t judge too harshly.)

What Looking and Gravitating Have in Common

I looked over at the driver of the Camaro. She looked back. I smiled. She smiled back. I kept looking. She kept looking…and then began to look concerned.

I naively and obliviously kept smiling like an idiot. And then, just a bit too late, I remembered a very important lesson I had forgotten from driver’s ed.

Whatever you are looking at, you tend to gravitate towards.

In my awkward staring, I had drifted into her lane. Fast forward a few moments, and you’ll see a fresh dent and scrape on the side of that beautiful red Camaro that matched the damage to my fragile ego. (Fortunately, Not-My-Wife-Stephanie was far more gracious to me than I had been to her).

Over the years, I have learned that simple yet overlooked principle from my driver’s education class isn’t just true of cars but of life in general. We often gravitate in the direction of where we are looking.

Jesus affirmed this connection in his most famous sermon, stating that “the eyes are the lamp of the body.” Our eyes are the entrance to our hearts and minds; they provide a doorway to our souls and set the course for our entire lives.

Fix Your Gaze

Maybe you’ve been distracted lately, with your attention pulled left or right and you are missing out on the best vision for your life.

Maybe you’ve spent too much time looking down and have been haunted by a sinking feeling dragging you into a deeper and darker place than you ever imagined. Joy is gone.

Or maybe you’ve been spending too much time looking backwards. While it’s healthy to remember the past and learn from it, spending too much time staring in the rear-view mirror will keep us from experiencing the joy-filled adventure in front of us and instead keep us locked in the past.

Wherever you are, whatever you have been feeling or experiencing, you do have a choice on where your gaze is fixed. And who knows - you might find yourself heading in a better, more joyful direction.

As for that beautiful red Camaro? My classmate date picked me up the next day for church in it…and then proceeded to total it on our way there.

“Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.” - Psalm 119:37 (ESV)

Question:
Have you found it easy to look sideways or backwards and get easily distracted?
What will you do about that?