Mid-course Correction

What I love about faith and life is that we are always allowed to turn around if we find ourselves heading in the wrong direction. So here's what I propose: let's start reading Galatians tomorrow. We are in the middle of 5 lectionary readings from Galatians, so it will be nice to read the through the whole book.

We can pick Zechariah up with the other minor prophets when we head that way again.

The more fluidly we can admit to needing to make a mid-course correction and then doing it immediately, the better off we will be.

A story to illustrate the point: I love hiking, but my kids are starting to hate it, because I never know when to stop. Heidi and I took them to Pearl Hill State Park for Malachi's birthday (thanks for reading his book BTW). They should have called it Straight Up and Down Winding Path of Death State Park. On a scale of 1 to 10 for rigorous trails, this was a 13.

We came to a sign nailed to a tree that said, "This is the halfway point. Consider how long it took you to get here." On the map it said that the trail would take 2 or 2 1/2 hours. We thought they meant round-trip. We were over an hour into it. Heidi suggested that we turn back, but I (of not the least bit of directional ability) had a better plan. We would hike on until we hit the road and then take this smooth path back to our camper.

When we finally got to the point at which Heidi put her foot down (Malachi was nearly asleep on my shoulders from exhaustion), I came up with a compromise: I would run ahead to see if the road was actually on this path or if we were on a wild goose chase, then come back and report my findings. The road was indeed just a few hundred yards ahead and it was smooth sailing (read a long walk) from there.

We got safely back to camp, but would have probably (read definitely) been better off going with my wife's plan.

Having said that, let's not be afraid of mid-course corrections at Faith. I love the message, "keep moving forward," from Disney's Meet the Robinsons, but we don't want any casualties along the way, as we (read I) drag people along.

Happy reading!