Drift Danger

Nº 181 weekly devotions to refresh your soul by Dr. Dan Bolin - January 18, 2022

One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations. People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, and obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. - D.A. Carson

I was minding my own business, cruising through a freeway construction zone, when I realized I had entered an exit lane. To one side, beyond the concrete barricades, I could see the freeway. Fortunately, I was heading in almost the right direction. Unfortunately, my pathway gradually swung farther and farther off course, moving me away from my intended destination. We rarely make a willful choice to go in the wrong direction. Usually, we just drift into an incorrect lane of bitterness, greed, lust, or entitlement and in the end find that we have coasted way off course. Saul started out as a great king, but his pride, fear, and ambition led him off God’s pathway. He drifted onto a course that guided him away from God’s design for his life of national leadership. His self-assessment near the end of his reign is tragic: “Then Saul said, “I have sinned . . . Surely I have acted like a fool and have erred greatly.” (I Samuel 26: 21) The simple yet profound strategy to avoid drifting off course is to stay in the correct lane, and there is only one. Follow Jesus – the way, the truth, and the life.

Dan Bolin President Refueling in Flight Ministries, Inc