- The Importance Of Direction

IN THE CHRISTIAN WAY, the one vital thing is not speed nor distance attained, but direction. For this reason the Scriptures exhort the runner to patience and say nothing about speed. The Lord would seem to be more concerned with where we are going rather than how fast. A steady pace in the right direction will lead to the right goal at last, but if the life is aimed at the wrong goal, speed will only take us further astray in a shorter time.
Lack of direction is the cause of many tragic failures in religious activities. The churches are overrun with persons of both sexes (though the vast majority are men) who have never known a clear call of God to anything in particular. Such people are often victims of whim and chance, the easy prey of ambitious leaders who seek to gain prominence by using others for their own ends. The directionless Christian is the one who supports the new and spectacular, regardless of whether or not it is in accord with the Scriptures and the revealed will of God.
A great economizing of time and effort can be effected by learning what we should do and then sticking to it, quietly refusing to be turned aside from our task. Paul said, “But one thing I do,” and by paring his activities down to an important minimum he multiplied his efficiency many times over. We must avoid the error of assuming that because we are busy we are therefore getting a lot done. Much of our current activity is in line with the old gentleman who got his peg leg caught in a hole in the sidewalk and walked around it all night trying to get home.
The further we get from our beginnings, the stronger the temptation to surrender to the confused ways of modern Fundamentalism and play ring-around-a-rosy with whatever partners happen to be popular at the moment. This temptation we must resist with everything in us. Should we take up the ways of the blind twentieth-century church, we will surely waste our time and other people’s money in the mistaken belief that we are doing the will of God. From such a major calamity, O Lord, deliver us.
If we should seem at times to be a bit slow, let it be remembered that we do know the direction we are called to go, and as long as we have followed that original urge we have been blessed with success beyond our best expectation. That we maintain our God-revealed direction is vitally important. Let us not fail here.