The Path Principle

At the end of last year I randomly download a sermon series called Destinations by Andy Stanly. I think the Lord speaks to me through that man and his sermons more than anyone else I've ever heard speak. It was exactly what I needed to hear and still need to be reminded of as I venture though the season of life I'm in. I just recently listened to it again and feel like blogging about the things that I learned in this four part sermon series that has changed the way I look at my life.

PART ONE: THE PATH PRINCIPLE 

The direction of the road you are on will lead you to your destination.

Well, that's a no brainer. If you are going in the direction to point A, that route isn't going to take to point B. Pretty simple right?

This is what Andy calls the principle of the path: Your direction determines your destination.

The same "simple" idea applies to all our lives. Our direction in life determines our destination in life. Andy points out that we think that our intention, hopes, dreams, prayers, belief will at some stage trump our direction….....but guess what?! They don’t!

This principle of path applies to every area of our life: dating, marriage, profession, health, finances and so forth.

Think about your life. Think about the times that you've ended up at a destination where you did not want to be. Now, think about how you ended up there? When I stop to think about that I come up seeing the huge discontent between where I wanted to end up and path that I chose to take.

In his sermon Andy takes us through Proverbs 7 to illustrate this point. I'll let you read the whole thing yourself but in summary it's about how Saul watches a young man...

 
"He was walking down the street near the corner on the road leading to her house."

The her would be the woman of Adultery. Saul sees this young guy man walking down this path and KNOWS the outcome of his journey. He's walking down THAT path. THAT path will lead to the woman's house and lead to an end result that the young man may have not been intending.

Andy points out that so many times we are focused on what we are doing but God is focused on where we are heading. It is not just events that we encounter in life, they are paths. Just like this young man and his interaction with the woman of adultery....it was not just a moment of pleasure with her. It was a path that he was now on towards destruction.

 ^"Her house is on the road to death, the road that leads down to the grave."

But that's not our intention! It's not our intention to head towards destruction. It's not our intention to end up in THAT destination. And our culture tells us that as long as our intentions are good it doesn't matter the path we take. FALSE! At the end of the day our path TRUMPS our intentions every time.

I loved the examples that Andy gave for this

  "I wanna end up with great Christian guy – so I’m gonna go out with anyone who asks me if he’s cute. And that will lead me to that destination?!"

"I wanna lose weight and be thin so supersize that….i wanna be close to God so I get up every morning and read the newspaper"

"When I get married I wanna have an incredible sex life so I’m gonna practice with everyone that I date because the best way to insure great sex in marriage is to sleep with everyone along the way. You will not find someone in their 50s who says that it is what results in great marriage and great sex life…."

"Are the paths you are on gonna get you to wear you wanna be?!"

This was a haunting question for me when I first heard this sermon.

Because I knew the answer was no. I knew I was flirting with paths that would not take me to where I really ultimately want to end up and as I listened to this message it scared me. I didn't want to be on these paths anymore. I didn't understand why I'd become so caught up in them until Andy said this.....

"The reason we are so enamored with the wrong path is because there is something or someone on that path that has such a strong emotional appeal that we get so fixated on the immediate that we don’t even think about the ultimate."

YES! That has happened to me so many times! I feel like that could have actually been one of the themes of 2011 for me. I am a strong emotional person by nature. I will be the first to admit that I'm much more ruled by my emotions than logic. So, this made so much sense to me that the pull of these paths is that they are immediately filling an emotional need in me. That the appeal of that is so strong that I forget about the big picture and the bigger story.

And as I reflect on my life and the moments where I ended up in a "how the crap did I get here moment"......this principle rings true.

You start on a path and maybe you know it's not the wisest thing but really who is going to harm?

You are stronger than that, right?!

 "I just drank a little bit too much that night, it's not that big of a deal. So, I got wasted the next weekend. It was a one time deal."

"So, it was late at night and we were making out on the couch with the lights off. Yah probably not the wisest but I would never let myself get out of hand."

"Ok, so I went on a little shopping spree and charge it. No big deal, I'll pay it off next month."
"It was just lunch with a coworker, no big deal. Yah, he's married and yah he's joked that he'd leave his wife for a woman like me. That doesn't mean anything"

"I was just so stressed out, I just needed to relax so I tried it. It's not like I'm gonna use all the time"

Do you see yourself in any of those statements? Have you ever been in a similar situation? Have you ever had someone in life warn you? And you blew it off cause you knew you were cooler or smarter or stronger than that?

I have and it's those initial situations that slowly and ultimately led me to my "how did I get here" moments. Because those initial thoughts, initial actions, those initial "it's not that big of deal" moments are what started me down the direction of a path that led me to a destination that I did not want to be at.

Direction determines destination

I wish I had heard this sermon years ago. But thankful I heard it when I did.

So what about you? What path are you on? Where is it taking you?

What direction are you going in? Morally? Financially? Relationships?

These questions have now become ones that I ask myself on a regular basis

because sometimes it's time to start thinking about making some changes in my course directions to reach the destination where my hopes and my dreams lie.

 COMING SOON

Part Two: Looking Ahead

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