Message Recap
Pastor Dave Dummit continued our series Life Hacks with a sermon titled "Avoiding Regret: Wisdom for the Journey." He began by stating: Wise people ask for directions. Foolish people do not. Pastor Dave shared three points that Andy Stanley made in his book titled Principle of the Path:
1. People who get lost don't do it on purpose.
2. They don't know when it happened.
3. The wrong road won't take you to the right place.
Pastor Dave continued and said: Direction, not intention, determines destination. Meaning we can intend all we want to drive to Florida, but if we are heading west and not south, we will never get there. This principle is something we must try to understand and live by as it is a helpful guide to living a life as best we can, without regret.
Pastor Dave then walked us through Proverbs 7 to show us just how this can play out. In this passage, we see Solomon narrating the journey of a young man heading toward a very bad decision. In doing so, he illustrates this simple principle: that every path has a destination. While we may think we are making one small decision, often, this leads us on a path in the wrong direction or, as we see in this passage, on a path toward destruction.
As we rounded out the story, Pastor Dave challenged us: is the path you're on going to take you to where you ultimately want to be? If direction ultimately determines destination, we have to ask ourselves where we are headed. Have there been people in our lives calling out the future, and we've brushed them off? Are we thinking what happened to others on this path won't possibly happen to us? When we are lost, we don't keep going in the same direction. We stop and ask for directions. Pastor Dave encouraged us to stop and make that u-turn so we can get on the right path.
No matter where we find ourselves today, no matter how much we may have veered off the path toward our intended destination, God can redeem, restore and set us back toward the right destination. Pastor Dave shared a story of hide and seek with his young son. When he finally found his little boy, his response to seeing him was one of utter joy and relief. He scooped his little boy up in his arms and held him tightly. This is the way Jesus sees us. We may veer off the path and head in the wrong direction—whether we intend to or not. All we have to do is let Jesus pursue us and accept His unconditional and restorative love to get back on the right path.
