Keep my eyes on the path I am on

Last week I had an early morning meeting in San Francisco, so I rushed into my car and drove off. On a stretch of Highway 101, near the SF airport, my mind wandered off. I found myself on an unfamiliar street. Instead of exiting onto highway 280, I went straight on 101. I tried to get off at the next exit and reverse my route. “Simple”, I thought to myself, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t see the highway entrance. The more turns I made to find my way out, the deeper I got into strange corners where I had a harder time getting out. Eventually, I found my way to the university, feeling stupid and anxious about missing an important meeting at work.

Afterward, I considered my getting lost experience. It happened in a split second. My mind was not on where I was going. As a matter of fact, I was replaying in my mind an unpleasant incident that happened the day before at work. The more I replayed the incident, the angrier I became. Instead of giving it to the Lord and forgiving the person, I was trying to figure out the person’s motive. My mind [and my car] ran off in a wrong direction.

During our Christian walk, we often lose our way, if we are not careful. Just as I knew my destination perfectly, most Christians know where we are going. And yet, if we are not aware every minute during our walk, we could miss our exit and turn in a wrong direction. As soon as I learned of my mistake, I turned around. It still cost me an hour to get back on track and I missed an important meeting. I caused other people to wait for me and several meetings had to be rescheduled. If we take our eyes off from the path we travel, we may end up in a wrong place and bring grief to ourselves and cause problems for others.