I love Onewheel rides, and since the weather has just started to warm up, this weekend I took two long rides around DC and Virginia. During my ride yesterday, I noticed a ton of potholes—especially in bike lanes and on sidewalks. Most streets also had them, of course. I found myself looking several yards ahead to swerve around them, but I still hit some despite my best efforts. It was quite paradoxical because that wasn’t the goal, but whenever I focused on not doing it, I ended up doing it more often than not.
That got me thinking about a verse in the Letter from Paul to the Romans:
For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 1
If there’s something we can all agree on, it’s that potholes are evil. And I kept hitting ‘em.
It struck me today, after reading several of Christ’s parables, that this was a deeper metaphor.
I was approaching the problem with the wrong mindset—the Pharisee mindset. If you know anything about Second Temple Judaism and the origins of Christianity, you know that the Pharisees were so focused on not disobeying the Law of Moses that they created additional laws to supplement it. Ironically, this caused them to fail in truly following the original Law.
Christ urged them to understand the faulty thinking by saying:
“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?” 2
The Pharisees focused so much on not disobeying God that they missed the mark entirely (funny enough, the direct translation of sin is ‘missing the mark’).
In other words, they were aiming beyond the target. This was rooted in an arrogant focus on themselves—also known as pride.
Jesus (and therefore, God) calls us, instead, to focus on Him:
“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” 3
I think you see what I’m getting at. If we focus on the wrong thing, we do the wrong thing; if we focus on the right thing, we do the right thing.
I’ve started noticing my faulty thinking because I do this every day. I focus on avoiding my anxiety instead of enjoying the moment. I worry about what might happen if I do the wrong thing, and then it ends up happening. I try not to give in to certain private temptations, but that only makes them occupy my thoughts even more, which makes the urge stronger.
My target wasn’t to glorify God Almighty, but to avoid these vices and issues—like a Pharisee.
But if we focus on Him, the rest will follow. Jesus literally said it Himself.
Yesterday, on my Onewheel, I tried this new tactic to avoid those evil potholes. I focused my vision on the smooth parts of the trail and aimed for safer spots. Sure enough, most of the time I was successful!
So maybe God doesn’t want us to focus on avoiding the bad things; He simply calls us to aim for Him instead.