Good afternoon and welcome to the March 4th Musing.

My house faces spot on Northwest.

Speaking of compass points…

What do you call an alligator with a map and compass?

A navigator

What do you call a compass made of potatoes?

An orientater

I thought about telling a joke about a broken compass…

But I didn’t know where I was going with it.

…

My house faces due Northwest.     For most, that would not be an issue.

Perhaps it is the Kansas boy in me, with all rural roads running north-south, east-west.    Or the pilot in me, spending hours flying by the compass.     But whatever the reason, my mind naturally needs to orient everything I see by what direction I am looking.

Thus my seventeen-year difficulty.    

My house faces precisely northwest.   And my mind will not accept it.    Usually when I look out the front my mind says “west”.   But when I am in the backyard looking over the house my mind says “north.”     

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that this quandary is paralyzing, but it does take effort for me to reorient my mind to the true direction, northwest.    I have to preach to myself, so to speak, and use the resources available in order to make my mind think rightly.   The nearby power lines running north and south are a nice reference during the day.    The flight path of the airlines flying north and south during approach to DFW also a visual reminder.   And at night, the faithful Polaris, that North Star, dutifully in place to help orient me.    

And though once successfully reorientated, I inevitably have to do it all again the next time I am out.    For whatever reason, the resting place for my mind is never correct.   It is a continual conscious effort to think rightly about the direction my house faces.    My mind never drifts toward Northwest.

“Now thanks for sharing Rod, but why tell us this?”

It seems to me that as followers of Christ, we too face the same “directionally challenged” dilemma.     Though we know the Word of God, are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, yet we still tend to see life and the world around us in distorted ways.  Worldly ways.   Nearly everything around us shouts counter to how we should think.  And these surroundings can make things seem fuzzy, blurred.  And our minds tend to gravitate toward this distortion.  As one theologian has said, “No one drifts toward holiness.”

And just as I have to force myself to think rightly on direction, we all too must make a conscious effort to think rightly about the world around us.   To think as Christians with a Biblical worldview.   To think God’s thoughts after Him as revealed in His Word.   This takes effort.   And as my own mind needs discipline and references to think correctly directionally, we all too need references to think rightly as we interact with our surroundings.    We must continue to orient our minds through reading the bible, meditating on scripture, prayer, worship, evangelism, fellowship of fellow believers, etc.   And we must continually preach to ourselves the Truth we hold dear.     

The Psalmist David too must have had a similar challenge, his own heart and thoughts conflicted between the true and the false.  I love his words captured in Psalm 86:11

Teach me Your way, O Lord;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.

Yes, Lord, may you unite our hearts, and continually redirect our minds, to fear Your name, and to walk thinking rightly in Your paths.

Rod Milton

S.D.G. – 6