Craig T. Owens

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It’s a funny story that I love to tell, but my wife doesn’t enjoy it so much (please forgive me, dearest!).

We were visiting my father-in-law in northern California and he took us sailing on a huge sailing ship. Being novice sailors, Betsy and I were excited to learn and to experience all of the thrills of hoisting sails, coming about, and the like. After we had been in the Monterey Bay for awhile, heading out toward the Pacific Ocean, it was Betsy’s turn to pilot the ship. I was busy with all of my other sailing responsibilities, when I looked up and asked, “Weren’t we headed toward the ocean? Why are we heading back toward land?” Betsy had thought she was keeping the ship pointed straight, but in all of her concentration, we had slowly made a 180-degree turn.

She is in good company! A similar thing happened to Sir William Edward Parry, the famous English naval officer and record-setting explorer of the Arctic. He made one of the first attempts to reach the North Pole and, in doing so, set a record for pushing farther north than anyone else, a record that was his for nearly fifty years.

On one of his trips to the Arctic, Parry and his men were trekking across the ice toward the North Pole. Admiral Parry stopped to calculated their position by using the stars. Hours later when the exhausted explorers stopped to rest, Parry again calculated their position and discovered something he could hardly believe. After hours of heading north, they were actually farther south than when he made his previous calculation! Fortunately, Parry quickly discovered the problem: they were on a gigantic ice floe that was moving south faster than they were sledding north. Much like Betsy’s experience on the sailing ship, the ice floe was so big and moving so slowly that the arctic team’s loss of position was barely perceptible until Parry recalculated.

This is why recalculations and realignments are so vital for Christians too.

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Corinthians 10:12)

Let a man thoroughly examine himself…. (1 Corinthians 11:28)

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Don’t ever assume you’re still on the right course. Stop, listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice, recalculate your position by the perfect standard of God’s Word, and make the adjustments you need to. Otherwise, you may end up someplace you never intended to go!

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