DIRECTIONALLY CHALLENGED

Are you directionally challenged?  Easily lost?  Have a horrible sense of direction?

Every so often while I’m working at my local Starbucks, a group of 50+ special needs adults come in, buy drinks and hang out.  I’ll be honest with you, I don’t get much done.  I’m taking it all in.  For that hour and a half Starbucks turns into this awesome club for special needs people.
Everyone has a drink in hand and you see so much laughing and hugging and dancing (That’s right, I said dancing).  I love it!  One of the highlights is noticing an unsuspecting person walking into Starbucks in the middle of the party.  It’s packed. There’s no opened seating.  They look a bit confused as they turn around and leave.

This Wednesday was one of those occasions and I noticed a older man rolled up in one of those motorized chairs who wasn’t a part of this group.  He approached some of the special needs guys hanging out outside of Starbucks to ask for directions.  What proceeded to happen made me laugh as each of the four guys pointed in different directions. He looked confused as he seemed confident what he was looking for was somewhere east (that’s where he pointed as he talked).  They all shook their heads and continued to point in different directions.

Several months ago I joined a group of pastors on a trip to Haiti.  We went with a ministry that feeds hungry children around the world called Convoy of Hope.  It was one of those life changing experiences.  But for the sake of today’s blog I want to talk about something that happened as we were getting ready to leave Haiti.  In the Port a Prince airport we were given strict instructions to not let anyone touch our bags and to follow our guide and nobody else.  We walked in and were greeted by a group of uniformed men forcefully directing the crowd in which line to get into.  Some of us followed their directions and one of our guys who had issues with one of the kiosks even allowed one of these guys to move his bag as he lead him somewhere else. Our guide pulled us together and told us that the men in uniform did not work for the airport.  They we're just guys (that somehow got matching uniforms) who really didn’t know where they were leading people, all the while, scamming travelers for tips.  And if you don’t tip them they’d get really angry. He said if they helped us in any way, we owed them money.  I thought:  This is crazy.  If I had followed these guys, not only could I have ended up in the wrong line, it would have cost me money as well.

That’s so like life.  There are so many blind guides that seem so legit, seem so “official” that are trying to point you in what they claim to be the “right” direction.  And I want to warn you:  If you follow them it will cost you. Everyone has an opinion.  Fingers point in so many different directions.  Who do you listen to?  The loudest?  The most confident?  The one’s who love you most?  The ones who “seem right”?  But what if they’re not right?

The smartest man alive tells us:  There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs 14:12

He also tells us:  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

I’ve come to realize that the more I trust me, the more I trust the ways that seem right, the more I trust my own understanding, the rougher the road ahead ends up.  But when I trust God, follow He’s direction, submit to Him, He has a way of straightening out the path in front of me.  I’ve never, in my years of ministry, talked to someone who’s said:  “I tried it God’s way and I regret it.”  What I do hear is, “I tried it my way and things fell apart!”

Final thought:  Who are YOU pointing people to?  Yourself?  Him?  In other words, are you leveraging your influence to point people to The Answer?  Are you making Him known?  The greatest thing you could ever do for someone is to introduce them to the hope that’s only found in Jesus.