Who's Driving You?
Do You Know Where You’re Going? Start Here.
Check the map first. Which map? That makes a difference. Find out who made the map. Are the directions trustworthy? Is the publisher credible? Eve believed the tour guide snake and followed the lie. Liars lie. Liars tell lies. Liars promote lies to others. Of course, all paths lead to a destination and natural consequences. Start by defining your direction. Direction is defined as “the course or path on which something is moving or pointing.”
“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’
“He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’”
Genesis 3:9-10
If Direction Determines Destination, What Determines Direction?
Your direction is determined by what gets your attention. Whoa! Instant gratification! The devil’s lie worked. It still does. You want to be in control. You do not want to surrender to God’s will. You want your own way. Uh-oh.
If You’re Heading the Wrong Direction Then Turn Around Now
Read on ahead. What happened. When Adam and Eve realized that they were going the direction that displeased God, they chose a path that still is evidenced today:
- First they hid.
- Then they covered up.
- Then they blamed.
Designing the direction of your legacy continues when you assess where you are. Whether you realize it or not, whether you want to or not, you leave a legacy of who you are–who you were–along the path of life. Your path is made one decision at a time.
Looking at the map to know where you are now helps to see where you have come from and where you are going to. In other words, moving from the past into the future means you are in the present. The present is a present! That’s all you have control of now. The past is history. The future is a mystery.
So what happened to Adam and Eve? Natural consequences. God had warned them. They had chosen to reject His loving care to replace God as GOD and be their own gods. They were expelled from the Garden of Eden. However, in Genesis 3:15, God stated factual hope that they would win if they turned toward God instead of away from Him, and promised in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”
“The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
1 John 3:8
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”
Now Which Way Do I Go?
To answer that, look at the trajectory. You will end up at a destination by going a specific direction that caught your attention. What is it that grabbed your attention? Your motivation.
Motivation is a synonym for desire or passion or will. You want it. You really go after whatever it is. Do you know where you will end up?
Maybe. Maybe not.
That’s where an assessment makes the difference.
DESIRE forms a THOUGHT that causes an ACTION that leads to a CONSEQUENCE.