TRAPPSTR

Eyes trained for the exceptional

Posted on 20. Oct, 2009 by Brett in Leadership

“They’re so…small,” were my thoughts when I went back to my first high school football game in the fall of 2000. I remembered everyone on the field being MUCH bigger and feeling ridiculously outmuscled when I suited up a year earlier. Now they looked like hobbits. What happened? Had high school kids shrunk that much since I left?

Of course not. What had changed was my perspective. Having already gone to half a dozen college games during my freshman year, my eyes had slowly been retrained on the “normal” size of a football player. College football is a land of giants compared to small division high school football where bony white kids like me could get playing time. But now my eyes were used to seeing 300 pound linemen and 6 foot 5 inch wideouts. My eyes were trained on what a “normal” football player looked like.

So many people live utterly mediocre lives simply because that’s all their eyes are trained for. Children in the projects repeat the poverty of their parents because their eyes only see poor. Poor becomes normal. Radicalized muslims continue the terror because their eyes are trained for violence. Violence becomes normal. Churches stay flat because members’ eyes (and hearts) are trained for stupid, passionless, limp-wristed theology. Lifeless religion becomes normal.

Eyes trained on evil usually further the cause of evil. For most of us though, our eyes are simply trained on mediocrity. It’s all around us. And mediocrity is like an evil nanny, quietly rocking to sleep those under her care, patiently waiting to steal a life.

Dear God, plant me in the company of gifted businessmen, passionate believers, bold encouragers, and world-changers. Train my eyes for the exceptional. Make it normal.