Help! I Need a Course Correction!
I travel the highways to Austin and Tulsa often and rarely do I need directions. But, when I am on the phone or in Lala Land while driving, I just might take a wrong turn. One time, I took the wrong exit to Dallas coming home from Tulsa and ended up on some backwoods roads. I thought “Since I’m this far into it, I’ll just stay on this road and see where it comes out. After all, I’m going southwest so it will eventually get me where I need to go.” It did, but it was a 45-minute longer drive. I should have course-corrected, turned around to get back back on the right road. Then it would have only been a 20-minute longer drive.
What you may not know about me is that I’m a Private Pilot. Haven’t flown since my husband when to heaven, but once a pilot, always a pilot. We had a single engine, 4-passenger, Cessna 182 like the one pictured here – a sweet ride. We logged many hours flying across this great country. I remember some crucially important things that ensured landing where, and when, we intended. Wind speed and wind direction requires course corrections throughout the flight. A strong wind can certainly take you off course. Constant “tweaking” is necessary. All it takes is to be off just a few degrees and you can end up in Timbuktu, instead of the intended destination.
And those course corrections while driving and flying are true in our own day-to-day living. Our emotions, our bodies, and our spirits may get off course by “negative winds” that we’ve let come in. They may have come in by the company we keep, some unhealthy habits, some unwise decisions we make without consulting our Heavenly Father first, maybe some compromising of our ethics and integrity, or literally missing the mark.
Perhaps, it’s time for some tweaking and correcting our course. The winds can certainly slow us down, and take us completely off course — not to mention keep us from receiving the blessings that could have been ours if we were on track. Here we are in the season of Lent when we deliberately focus our attention on getting it right – getting our hearts right. It’s the perfect time to make course corrections – where we make the adjustments necessary to be fully devoted followers of Christ.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10. I promise you….this is the stuff that helps us drive further — faster and fly higher than we’ve EVER flown before. I’m quite sure I can use some tweaking!