Keep Your Wheels on the Road
A Saturday Story
[Saturday stories are a weekly deviation from the normal Scripture based devotion. Thank you to all the paid subscribers. Your contributions will be helping with some mission projects this fall. There is never any obligation to be a paid subscriber, but if you’d like to join that group I would certainly welcome it…Now on to our Saturday Story]
The front wheel of her bike went off the edge of the pavement followed by the rear tire. Fortunately, the drop wasn’t steep and the edge of the pavement wasn’t significantly higher than the grass of the road shoulder so she was able to correct and get back on the road without any harmful outcomes from the minor mishap.
“That’s the second time I’ve done that,” she muttered with a degree of obvious frustration. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
When someone is learning a new skill, it is a balancing act for the person mentoring them in it. Giving advice too often can make them want to tell you to “Shut your pie hole you know-it-all.” At the same time, mentoring is about helping someone else learn and grow in some area of life or some skill. In this case, she opened the door by saying, “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
“Well, it is counterintuitive,” I said, “But you don’t want to look at the hazard in the road. Your bike will go where you are looking. If you look at the edge of the road, you’ll go to the edge of the road. You always want to look at where you want to go. You have to be aware of hazards. You have to know where they are, but once you see them look at where you want to go to avoid them.”
“That’s exactly what I was doing,” she answered, immediately recognizing the truth of what I shared.
There is a life lesson there as well.
Focus on everything wrong, false teaching, evil, the sin in the world and you will end up in the very ditch you saw as the problem. It isn’t that we shouldn’t be aware of the hazards on life’s road. But once you see them, put your focus on where you want to go. There is the old principle of “you become what you behold.” This is akin to it. You will go where you set your gaze.
When you see what is false, it is right and good to recognize it for the danger it is, but once you have identified it turn your eyes toward the truth and set your mind on that. See hatred for what it is, but keep your eyes on love. Know evil exists and where it lurks, but keep your sight set on righteousness.
Paul wrote, “I want you to be wise in what is good, and innocent in what is evil.” You’ll keep your wheels out of the ditch and on the road this way.
