“Do you know where you are going?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Are you sure you know where you are?”
“I thought so but now that you ask, where am I?”
It was an interesting series of questions. I was so sure I knew where I was and where I was going. The first question caused me to pause. The second one challenged my confidence in a not threatening way. Did I?
“Where do you think I am?”
As I listening I realized my points of reference were all wrong! I thought I knew but with hindsight I realized had no accurate idea. I was confident when I should have been asking questions. The good news was that I did not ignore the questions.
It is so easy to get and be lost. This case is an example of one lost reference point combining with another and the two combining with a third, fourth, and fifth. By the time the questions were asked, I was in a place I thought I recognized but did not. I was heading to a destination that I would never reach because I was confidently going away not towards my goal.
Navigation lessons of the day continue to me reasons to change my approach.
Use the reference points of where you are and what is happening to recalibrate. One can accept small indicators as normal or use them to refresh one’s position. Each new reference point is an opportunity to true up one’s path. If you lose these opportunities you easily step in the trap that a community challenged to remain independent fall into when “they intermarried with the heathen, and in time became just like them.” (Psalm 106.35)
Use the wisdom and insight of others as aids that guide and instruct. Each act of questioning and sharing is a priceless gift. They are fresh opportunities to use one’s freedom to learn, grow, and change.
It seems that I was well and truly lost. With a humorous chat and map check, a new course was set and we arrived on time.
