The Path Principle
Andy Stanley teaches this principle and I want to share it with you. It is so incredibly valuable and is valid for believers and non-believers alike but is particularly powerful for believers. It is common sense and yet, it trips up so many of us. It is the Path Principle - "Direction, not intention, determines destination." Say it again...Direction, not intention, determines our destination.

If you want to go to Destin this weekend, you can pack your swim suit, suntan lotion, load up your car, fill it up and pray for travel mercies. But if you cross over into Alabama on the North Bypass and come to US 280 and go right instead of left, you will NEVER get to Florida. You'll get to Birmingham. As nice as Birmingham is, it isn't the beach. You intended to go to the beach, you planned to go and you even prayed about going but your direction took you north instead of south.

We make this mistake in life. We say we want to marry a nice Christian girl. We'll date her, go to church with her and pray with her and it'll be great. That's my intention but that isn't the kind of girl I am spending my time with. No, I'm partying at the Frat house with the wild party girls and my actual screening mechanism for choosing girls is "If she is hot, I'm going after her...". Or - shoe on the other foot - girls who go off to college seeking "nice, Christian boys" probably aren't going to find them partying at the Sigma Chi house on Friday night. And so then you say, "How did I end up here?" when the boy you are dating is out partying with his friends or hooking up with random girls behind your back. Well, I know how that happened...

Direction - not intention - determines our destination. What you said you wanted is different from the path you chose.

Some will say "I want to get into a real good school so I can have lots of opportunities" but their actual path is vastly different when it comes to the hard work and studying that it takes to get there. You're not going to Vanderbilt if you're not willing to work very hard to get there. You can intend it and pray about it but it won't happen unless you get on the right path.

What of the kid that wants to be a great athlete? Will he make the choices that get him there - working out, practicing, practicing, practicing - or will he choose to just sit back and not do the hard work and hope the coach puts him in?

Gary Player was one of the great golfers of all time. At a tournament, he hit his shot off the first tee and heard a spectator say, "Man, I'd give anything to hit a golf ball like that." On the next hole, the same thing happened. After a few more holes of hearing this, Player turned on his toes following a great shot and that same comment and approached the spectator. He looked him in the eye and said, "You wouldn't give anything to hit the ball like me because if you would, you would have gotten up every morning at 5:30am to go to the range. And you would have hit 1,000 balls until your hands started to swell and bleed. You would have left the range and gone into the clubhouse to soak your hands in ice and to wipe off the blood and you would have bandaged your hands and headed back out to hit 1,000 more. And you would have done this day after day...every day. But you didn't do this. I did and that is why I hit the ball this way and why you won't "give anything" to be able to hit the ball like me."

It is not what you dream for...
It is not what you hope for...
It is not even what you pray for...

It is the path that you choose.

We do this with our money. We think God is calling us to be debt free and we say we are going to down size and learn to do without so we can be free of debt and yet month after month, we spend more than we bring in. Saying "God is leading us to be debt free" sounds good but for many of us, we are not on the debt-free path. We're not willing to do the hard things now to get to the freedom down the road. We just talk about it, wish for it but we're not willing to do the work to get there.

The path always wins...100% of the time.

So why do we choose the wrong path? If you can understand this, it will save you a whole lot of pain in the years to come.

Things will come along in life that will capture our attention - some of them good, some of them really bad.

Have you ever had a girl come along and your head turns? You know you're not supposed to look...but you look. As a teenager in this situation your Dad says, "Son...she's trouble" and you said... "I know she is...I'm going to prove it." Or for teenage girls, that guy grabs her attention and her Mama says, "You don't need to be going out with boys like that..." Captured. The emails start flying. The text messages. We get consumed with this person. We spend crazy money and crazy time pursuing them. We disconnect from everything else. Parents wonder what on earth you could be doing spending all of your time obsessing over this boy or girl. School work falls off, etc.

Or for us men - another woman comes along. We know we shouldn't cross some lines and we know we should stay on our path but she just turns our head and changes our direction. Alcohol does this. Porn does this. Drugs. Possessions - i.e. I know we need to get out of debt but I sure do want that new boat or Plasma TV.

You know. You've been there. You know what it is like to be "captured" with something that you know will pull you off the path you are on.

How many of us would admit now that some of the people or things or vices we've turned our entire lives towards are now - in hindsight - obviously mistakes? How many teenage girls have given it all to a boy that she just knew was never going to do her wrong only to find out a short while later...he did? How many married men have turned away to another women lured by the short-term and now see the huge long-term implications and wreckage?

We know that when our attention is captured that it completely steers our entire lives in a completely different direction.

Proverbs 7 is a great picture of this. Solomon sits in a window and sees a young man walking up the street. A woman comes out and calls to him. He turns up her street and heads towards her. Her husband is away and she seductively lures him into her bed. He thinks it is all about him. "She wants me." He hears the song Born to be wild playing in his head as he struts towards her. Solomon hears the soundtrack to Jaws playing. He's toast and he hasn't a clue.

Or what of David? Great King David - "a man after God's own heart" - a man who sought God's direction. God prospered David, expanded his kingdom and honored his faithfulness. And then...he saw Bathsheba. He knew the path to stay on...but he just wanted her. He knew it was wrong and tried to cover it up. But he "just wanted that". And as a result, God brought death upon his house.

It is a great picture of allowing things to capture our attention and turn us off the path we know we are supposed to be on.

If a good athlete wants to be a great one, he's going to have to bust his butt and pass on some "opportunities" offered up by his buddies. Drinking beer and stuffing pizza will not reap the rewards that running sprints and lifting weights will bring him. He can say he wants it but if he's on the wrong path, he will never get there.

Girls (I have teenage daughters) aren't going to stay pure hanging out and partying with the wild crowd. I can just about guarantee it. If they want to be pure, if they want to stay on God's path, they are going to have to stay away from some of their peers.

I cannot sit and wish that I was debt free and still keep spending money the way I do. The math just does not work.

If I am overweight and out of shape I can talk all I want about desiring to get healthy but it won't happen unless I exercise 5-6 days a week and eat right. Period. It just won't happen by talking about it. I've got to do it and stay focused on the end goal and avoid the distractions that come along to my goal.

What path are you on?
What have you been saying you want to do but your present actions offer you almost no way to get there?
Where do you want to be in 5 years? Write it down.
What kind of life do you aspire to? Where is God leading you?

Get on that path and focus your attentions on God and His direction and be careful - very careful - about the things that will come along to try to capture your attention.

The direction you are heading - not your intentions - will determine where you end up.

Soar!