Do you ever feel as though you’re making your way through life in a thick fog? Do you sometimes worry that your life lacks direction, like you’re just walking in circles? We all experience these feelings occasionally. It’s a sign that our life needs a goal: something — or someone — to focus on and guide us.
For a moment I want to take you back to 1928. Three people walked out of a barn on a foggy day. Due to their disorientation caused by the fog, they began walking in a straight line, aiming for a point about half a mile away. The whole time they walked, they believed they were heading directly toward their destination, but the dense fog led them astray. A trip that should have taken minutes ended up taking hours. As it turned out, they were walking in circles the whole time! They only discovered this when, surprisingly, they ended up at the same barn they started from. This event has inspired many experiments which have concluded: without a point of reference like a mountaintop, landmark, or star, we humans struggle to travel very far in a completely straight line.
In many ways, this concept also applies to our spiritual lives. Proverbs 3 teaches, “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.”
As we endeavor to walk through life on the straight and narrow, there are so many other things vying for our attention to lead us astray — work, sports, entertainment and politics are always tempting places to devote our attention.
In our modern times it is easy for even the most faithful Christian to get distracted from God and his will. God knows this is a temptation for us, so he doesn’t abandon us to figure life out on our own. He gives us someone to focus on.
Just as humans struggle to walk in straight lines without a point of reference, we can't walk a path of righteousness without a guiding light. For all people, that light is Christ. It says in Hebrews, “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
And Jesus himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Dear friend, if your walk of faith has been lacking, do not be afraid. Just like the folks who got lost in the fog, we can all sometimes lose our way. Yet we are not left to wander aimlessly. We have a dependable guide, a sure point of reference – Jesus Christ. Through his life, death and resurrection, he forgives you your sins. And in these last days, he has given you his Word to show you the way home.