Turn Around

I take the same route to and from work every day.

There are some advantages to this.

One of the biggest advantages is that I have learned from experience where I need to be more careful.

There is a hill I must descend that is rather steep.

I need to monitor my speed there so I can stop safely.

There is one traffic light that changes more frequently than the others.

I need to wait an extra second or two before proceeding as someone will inevitably run the red light.

There is a left turn I must make from a busy highway.

Experience has taught me to make sure I am in the correct lane well before I get there.

Spring will be upon us soon.

Experience has taught me that I will be sharing the road with more bicyclists as the weather warms up.

There are also some disadvantages to taking the same path each and every day.

The biggest by far is not being familiar with alternate routes.

I recall one time in particular when traffic was diverted off the main highway onto another road because of an accident.

Suddenly, I found myself in unfamiliar territory.

I quickly discovered that I had absolutely no idea where I was.

I was simply followed the car in front of me.

He was simply following the car in front of him, and so forth.

It is likely that most of us naturally assumed that someone ahead of us knew how to get us back on track.

After several minutes I concluded that this was not the case.

If I continued to follow the pack I was only going to get farther away from where I wanted to be.

I had a decision to make.

At my next opportunity, I exited the highway and left the others.

Although I was in unfamiliar territory, I had a general sense of the direction I needed to travel.

After what seemed like a very long time, I finally spotted a landmark I was familiar with.

Using it as a guide, I made my way back to the path I knew would take me where I needed to go.

I wondered how far away the others were by then.

Life is a journey.

Sometimes we discover that we are not on the right path.

At that point we have a decision to make.

John 14:6 (NIV) - Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

If we are not on the right path in life, we put distance between ourselves and Jesus.

There is only one solution.

We must stop and go back.

The longer we wait to do this, the greater is the distance we will have to travel.

C. S. Lewis said, “We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

Blessings,

Jim Pokorny

The Other Brother Jim

http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com