Recalculating?

If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress. (Barack Obama)

Whoever abandons the right path will be severely disciplined; whoever hates correction will die. 

(Proverbs 15:10)

The 'right path' is usually something each of us pursues these early weeks of a new year. It is like we got a 'clean slate' at midnight on the 31st of December and now we are free to 'do over' what we didn't do so well with over the past 365 days. While that is a little exaggerated, you get the point. We all need a 'do over' from time to time, don't we? If you are anything like me, those don't need to happen just in the first month of the new year - they need to happen ALL year! The right path is laid out, the plans are made, then somewhere down the line, there is a missed opportunity or missed step and we are 'off-course' for some strange reason. The 'strange reason' is likely that we abandoned it at some point!

The real question we each have to ask ourselves is if we are willing to 'keep walking'. If we realize we aren't on the right path, will we continue to walk down it, or we will we choose to 'recalculate' the course and get back on track? It is way too easy to give up on our goals, especially the ones God has helped us lay out for the year. We might feel the tug toward seeing them through, but when the 'rubber meets the road, we find ourselves wondering if we have what it takes to actually follow the path set out before us. It is easiest to 'veer' when we lose focus. Driving down a busy thoroughfare, getting distracted by something we see on the side of the road, and we can 'veer' across the dividing lines that we are to stay within, right? It is not much different with our 'focus' whenever we make 'goals' and 'plans' - even those we make at the feet of Jesus.

I have a GPS unit in my car, one on my phone, and you probably have something similar. When the little voice tells you to make a U-turn in 200 feet because you missed the turn, do you do it, or drive on? If we know there are 'multiple ways' to get back on course, we may opt for the next roadway to get us to our destination. If we have never been that way before, we may follow that advice a little more intentionally, right? When God helps us set goals for what we haven't experienced before, why would we ignore his voice and just go another way? Wouldn't it be wiser to listen, make the adjustments, and get back on course before we are too far off the course he has prepared for us? Just askin...