There is an old story about a sailor that goes like this:
An old sailor repeatedly got lost at sea, so his friends gave him a compass and urged him to use it.
The next time he went out in his boat, he followed their advice and took the compass with him. But as usual, he became hopelessly confused and was unable to find land.
Finally, he was rescued by his friends. Disgusted and impatient with him, they asked, “Why didn’t you use that compass we gave you? You could have saved us a lot of trouble!”
The sailor responded, “I didn’t dare to! I wanted to go north, but as hard as I tried to make the needle aim in that direction, it just kept on pointing southeast.”
The old sailor was so certain he knew which was north that he stubbornly tried to force his own personal persuasion on his compass. Unable to do so, he tossed it aside as worthless and failed to benefit from the guidance it offered.
While this story is humorous, it points out a glaring reality about who we are as people. As people, we like to make our ownway and follow our own direction. Sometimes in doing this we find ourselves confused and hopelessly lost. All the time God is calling us to go in a direction that leads us to God.
Sometimes we try to make God go in a direction that leads to us. That is kind of like the old sailor trying to force the compass needle to point in a direction it was not. Confusion and frustration are the result of this.
When we do this, we usually end up even farther from God. God knows we humans do this. Fortunately, God does not give up on us. That is why Jesus came here to this Earth. Jesus finds us adrift in a sea of misery and despair and rescues us and gets us back on course until we are safely standing on the solid rock.
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Editor’s note: Brian Timmons is the pastor of Pea Ridge and Brightwater Methodist Churches. He can be contacted at 925-0167 or by e-mail at [email protected].
Church, Pages 2 on 10/31/2012