Many Turns–one Road! (07.01.05--Direction--John ...  PRO

Many Turns–One Road! (07.01.05--Direction--John 21:20-25)

Like life, most highways that we find ourselves on aren’t always straight and true. In fact, what makes some highways fun to drive is that they give you the opportunity to make a turn here and there from time to time, just to break up the monotony of sameness. I have often been very thankful for that highway jog here and there that simply causes you to focus, to concentrate a bit harder on what you are doing so as to avoid the inevitable sleepiness that often accompanies long trips on a very boring and very straight highway.

Turns aren’t a bad thing when they give you pause to be reminded that you are on a highway in the first place and it is very important for safety sake and for your purpose of getting to where you want to go not to drive off on the shoulder or exit on the wrong ramp. It’s the turns that put us on life’s shoulder or on the wrong road that most often get us into trouble. Traveling on too many roads when you belong on one is a sure recipe for losing your direction and, ultimately, not getting to where you needed to go in the first place.

Have you ever found yourself “driving” sleepily through the day on more than one highway? “A weakness of all human beings,” wrote entrepreneur and inventory Henry Ford, “is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction. It makes for haste, and haste makes waste. So we do things all the wrong ways possible before we come to the right one. Then we think it is the best way because it works, and it was the only way left that we could see. Every now and then I wake up in the morning headed toward that finality, with a dozen things I want to do. I know I can’t do them all at once.” When asked what he did about that, Ford replied, “I go out and trot around the house. While I’m running off the excess energy that wants to do too much, my mind clears and I see what can be done and should be done first.” (Bits & Pieces, September 19, 1991, p. 18.)

It’s not so much how many turns we may take that determines our getting to where we want to go. Oftentimes its more likely the number of roads we make them on that gets us lost. Turns are good, multiple highways aren’t. Managing multiple priorities in your day is...