Course Corrections

Have you ever watched a small boy pretend to drive? Invariably he puts his little hands on his pretend steering wheel and moves the wheel back and forth continually. This has always struck me a strange. Why does he do that?

Surprisingly, he does that because that is exactly what he sees when he watches adults drive. We may think that we hold the wheel steady as we drive, but really we are continually making small adjustments to the wheel. Even on a relatively straight road we make little adjustments to keep the car in the right lane position, adjust to slight curvature in the road, or to correct for slight errors in direction -- I am particularly aware of this right now, teaching two teenage daughters to drive.

If you don't believe it, just try closing your eyes on a "straight" road for 20 seconds. As straight as the road may seem, we can't afford to neglect steering. Even a very slight deviation will cause your car to leave the road before very long.

Obviously, my aim here has little to do with driving instruction.

Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Hebrews 2:1-3 (emphasis is mine)

Just as with driving, we need to give diligence to our spiritual direction. We need to make corrections to stay on course. We can't afford to neglect the direction of our spiritual journey. If we do so we are sure to drift. The rhetorical question, "How shall we escape?", has an obvious answer. We won't. How tragic it would be if, after having received God's grace and the gift of salvation, we lost it through neglect.

Where are you? Are you keeping it between the lines? Are you still on course, or have you become side-tracked? What course corrections do you need to make?

-PG