I’m a physical therapist, and I work with a little kid (let’s call him Mark), and Mark has a condition called athetoid cerebral palsy. This condition makes him move his arms and legs and trunk and head in a writhing, wormlike fashion. And he is unable to control it.

For example, his head moves in a kind of sideways figure-eight, side to side and up and down—go ahead and try it—but don’t be too consistent with the motion, it needs to be more variable. There, now you’ve got an idea of how Mark moves.

As you can imagine, he has a difficult time looking in any one place for more than just a second or two because of his head movements (on top of a trunk that is also moving). 

I typically ask him to try to look at my eyes about once a session. At first, it seems that he didn’t hear me or understand because he just keeps moving in the same pattern. However if I give him about 10 or 15 seconds, I notice that his eyes will lock with mine, and I can see the struggle he makes to keep his eyes fixed on mine. 

He is typically successful for about one to two seconds before he loses the ability to keep his eyes on mine.

I pray for Mark that he will be able to make progress in controlling his body’s movements. I feel like there is a lesson I can learn from him

Hebrews 12:2 tells us to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, but this world has so many other things for us to look at. So many things distracting us, trying to pull our gaze off of the One that it is supposed to be on.

Today, let us struggle to keep our eyes on Jesus.

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.