That blind spot! I’m not talking about the back of the retina where the optic nerve enters the eyeball, that place lacking cones or rods that causes us to lose vision at certain angles. I am talking about those unguarded moments when I miss something right in front of me. The other day, our event company calculated that we’ve lost over $1,000 worth of equipment over the years due to leaving bags somewhere we shouldn’t have. Then just the other day, while I was coming home from the gym, I forgot to zip up the side pocket of my backpack where my phone was, and … you can guess what happened.
I started to wonder why I just don’t get it. I imagine part of the solution would be to simply go slower, pray more, and remember to double-check things. It probably also has to do with living more in the moment. Life is made up of a lot of individual choices over the span of around 2.4 billion seconds in a lifetime of 78 years. Each of those decisions helps to determine what happens to us or for us. It’s a continual challenge to make the right choices, and we don’t expect to succeed all the time. In baseball, if a batter hits the ball successfully over a third of the time, he is considered good.
The sweet spot is a term used in baseball for the best place on a bat to hit the ball, and also used generally in sports and the expressive arts for when someone is performing at optimum levels. I’ve had that feeling sometimes when playing squash, when my coordination, alertness, and swing all work together in perfect harmony and it seems nothing can go wrong.
How do we find that sweet spot in our lives where everything is humming and oiled by God’s Spirit? One diagram suggests we find it where our talent, personality, and experiences meet our spiritual gifts and our core values. 1
The sweet spot is a great place to live. Though we may sometimes “strike out” or miss the ball, we keep playing the game. Each time we come up to bat, we can pray, Help me to find the sweet spot and hit a home run!