My career as a ballerina was tragically brief. Washed up by my 10th birthday, I learned some painful life lessons very early. Here are a few examples:
- When impersonating a sugar plum fairy, keep your feet firmly planted on the ground. (If you jump, the loud “thump” on landing will give you away.)
- Try to stay in the middle of the herd, where it is easiest to hide.
- If, as a third grader, you grow taller than your ballet teacher – consider alternatives. Like, basketball. Or wrestling.
Okay, seriously… there is one powerful life lesson that I took away from those traumatic days of galumphing around in a tutu. It is a technique called “spotting”, and I commend it to you.
To “spot” as a dancer is to prevent or control dizziness while executing pirouettes by focusing on a fixed point. In plain lingo: you orient yourself while moving rapidly in circles by looking at something that is not moving at all.
The objective of spotting is to keep spinning (rather than collapsing in a heap to barf). Indeed, spotting enables ballet dancers to twirl a dozen or more times consecutively and then segue into whatever sequence comes next, all while pretending that none of it is a big deal. Spotting works because looking at a fixed visual cue tricks the inner ear (the locus of dizziness) with an illusion of stability.
Most of us don’t need to be able to pull off a string of piqué turns or a coda of fouettés. (Many of us might mistake such words for entrées on a menu, no?) But all of us need the ability to keep our balance while we spin and pivot our way through life. And sometimes life powerfully complicates the balancing act for us… I have in mind, as I type, the cataclysmic and disorienting kinds of out-of-control stuff as a pandemic + global social upheaval + economic insecurity. You know. The dizzying new normal of 2020. This is exactly where “spotting,” in its real-life application, takes on cosmic significance, empowering us to keep spinning, even as we do the dance in the midst of colossal instability.
Take it from an early-retired ballerina who’s working to keep on her feet these days: only Christ can be the “spot” we need in life.
The author of Hebrews spells it out, telling us to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
Jesus himself explains that He is the way, the only way – a steadying assurance to us bodies in motion.
And Jesus and Peter dramatize the miraculous potency of Jesus as “spot” during an episode in the gospel of Matthew (Chapter 14) when the two, together, walk on water in the middle of a storm.
27 “But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
29 “Come,” he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”
In these moments, Peter models for us the unique balance-benefits of focusing on Jesus – of using Jesus as our spot:
- When looking at Jesus, even overtly dangerous conditions around us cease to be determinative… the turbulent seas under Peter’s feet became walkable terrain.
- When looking at Jesus, we are empowered by Jesus to do whatever Jesus asks us… Peter’s technically impossible walk was an act of direct obedience to Jesus’s call.
- When looking at Jesus, we have the courage to leave our (dubious) places of “safety” and be with the One who keeps us actually safe… Scripture says the boat from which Peter stepped out was “in danger of sinking;” Jesus walked and stood on the water, untroubled by the wind and waves.
- When looking at Jesus, our balance becomes supernaturally solid… Peter was able to keep his feet not just in a boat rocked by a storm, but while standing on the very water that was rocking the boat!
We can look at this episode of Peter’s successfully “spotting” Jesus and appropriate its lessons for those moments in our own lives when the wind and waves and leaky boat look set to win the day. But there is more than the truth of a moment’s triumph here.
Consider this: neurologists from London’s Imperial College have demonstrated that regular spotting during dance training actually reconfigures dancers’ brains over time. They prove this by showing that the area of the cerebellum that processes sensory input from the inner ear is consistently diminished in size in the brains of elite dancers.
What does this mean? That the practice of tricking the inner ear by focusing the eyes eventually translates into a permanent cognitive realignment. Dancers, therefore, aren’t just less dizzy when they twirl while dancing; dancers are less dizzy, period.
Just as dancers’ brains become rewired for optimum balance and immunity to dizziness with practice over time, so believers’ brains become rewired for optimum peace and immunity to circumstantial disruptions when they practice “spotting” Jesus over time. Believers, therefore, aren’t just less doubtful when they spot through a dramatic spin; believers are less doubtful, period.
Not that either brain-changing process happens quickly or easily. Any dancer will tell you that learning to spot takes some serious self-discipline. It’s not natural to keep dragging your eyes back to the same point when your body is whirling through space. By the same principle, determining to “spot” on Jesus in life is first an exercise of the will – a literal matter of mind over momentum.
After the initial commitment to focus, choosing Jesus as our spot is a different process than a dancer picking a point on a wall before she starts spinning. Most significantly, choosing Jesus as our spot is saying “yes” to a relationship that requires ongoing investment of time and energy. Jesus wants much more of us than any point on the wall wants from a dancer.
Similarly, the specifics of Jesus matter enormously. Nobody else’s command and presence could have kept Peter upright on the sea! Whereas a dancer can focus on anything – a paint smudge, a light switch, a poster, anything fixed – and get good results, the Christian has to focus on Christ (Christ as He is, not as we dictate but as He reveals) for true stability.
For a dancer, the longest repertoire of spins in any dance will end in mere moments; the purpose of the spot is fleeting. For a Christian, the balancing act goes on and on… indefinitely. In life, staying upright through the turn isn’t a simple, finite matter of transitioning between sequences; twirling may be the whole dance.
Fortunately, unlike the dancer’s randomly chosen object-spot, Jesus-as-focus-point provides not only the visual cue we need to keep our balance but also the power to hold us up and keep us moving in the right direction. Jesus isn’t just the spot for a given pirouette. Jesus is the choreographer of the whole production!
Acknowledging this complete sovereignty of Christ, we can return to Peter’s walking on water for a cautionary tale. The miracle points unequivocally to the all-sufficiency of Jesus; what happens next demonstrates the danger of focusing on anything (or anyone) else.
Immediately after his miraculous moment of supernatural spotting, while walking on water toward God, Peter… loses focus.
30 But when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
As Peter shows, looking away from our spot – away from Jesus – allows the inner ear to take over our brain, and down we go. Every time.
Jesus’s gentle rebuke of Peter clues us into a profound truth: our focus reveals our faith. Claiming to be a Christ-follower while looking at anything but Christ is a contradiction in terms. We may not intend to “doubt”, but if we’re not fixing our eyes on Jesus that’s what we’re doing. And looking at wind and waves will sink us, sure as it sank Peter.
Of course, the story doesn’t end with our doubting – Peter didn’t drown! Looking away from Jesus doesn’t send us to the depths irrevocably, because Jesus is ever ready to rescue us and offer us another chance. It’s true that a ballet dancer’s career can be over in an instant, with a single false step. It’s equally true that a Christian has infinitely more Grace than that, always.
Wherever we are in our dance today, keeping our eyes on Jesus is the only safety and security we have – or will ever need. Jesus knows exactly where we are; Jesus knows exactly where we should step next. Fixing our eyes on Jesus will keep us on our feet through the twists, turns, tragedies, boat wrecks, whatever life throws at us. Turning our eyes back to Jesus whenever we’ve mistakenly looked away will restore us to our place in the dance. And step by step, twirl by twirl, Jesus will lead us if we let Him. And when we follow Him – with our eyes, with our feet, with our hearts – we will be safe. And sheltered. And on solid ground. No matter what. Forever.
