Who is your compass?

   “The Lord will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”  (Isaiah 58:11)

   Do you ever feel like you are wandering in the dark and are not sure in which direction you should go? You have no flashlight to see ahead and there is no GPS to tell you where to turn.  I was hiking in the woods a few weeks ago on a cold winter day and enjoying being out in the forest alone. As I walked, I suddenly had a flashback to December 1971, when I was as young soldier in the U.S. Army attending Ranger School.

   

    I remembered a night recon patrol my platoon conducted on a cold, moonless night in the forests of Fort Benning, Georgia. Our training mission required us to travel through a friendly unit in a defensive posture and be guided through their forftified position to include minefields and barbed wire obstacles. It meant we had to travel from that exit point and to move 3000 meters, conduct a recon of an enemy position without being detected, and then to return by a different route and reenter the friendly lines.

   I had been selected to be the compass man and another person would be the pace man to ensure that we could travel the distance there and back with some degree of accuracy. I had to plot the route to and from the objective, convert the map azimuth to a compass azimuth and then set the compass to traverse the route correctly. This meant that the point man would be the first man in the patrol and I would be second in line to direct him in the correct azimuth that had been set on the compass and the remainder of the men followed behind us.

    We took off and were able to travel the distance to the objective rally point near the enemy location, conduct the recon, and then start back on a different route without any problems. As I mentioned earlier, it was a moonless night and you could not see your hand in front of your face. All I could see in front of me was the florescent tape on the back of the point man’s patrol cap. If we hit a thicket of briars or an obstacle of any kind we always went through it. We could not see to go around anything and were relying on the compass to get us to where we needed to go.

    About halfway back to the friendly unit position the patrol leader stopped the patrol and came up to me. He said that the Ranger Instructor had told him that we were drifting to the right and that if I didn’t make a correction we might hit the friendly unit at the wrong place and hit one of their minefields. I told him that I had been following the compass azimuth as accurately as I could and it had guided us faithfully to the objective and I believed it would guide us to the right spot again. We continued on and when the pace man told me were within 100 meters of the unit entry point we stopped the patrol and the patrol leader and I went forward to make sure we were at the right place. We were dead on! We then linked up with the friendly unit guide to take us through his minefield and wire obstacles and finished the mission successfully.

     That night I learned that I could trust my compass to take me anywhere I needed to go on a dark night devoid of any other landmarks or other aides. It was trustworthy. It was accurate. It could be depended upon.

  In life we need something to depend upon also to get us to where we are going. The only faithful guide is Jesus! And the only guidebook we have to know Him better is His Word, the Bible. He wants to be our guide. He wants to be our master and friend. He wants us to have a relationship with Him everyday so that He can direct our feet on the path that is best for us. But He never forces Himself on us. He allows us to decide when and where we will meet and whether or not we will obey what He tells us to do or not to do.

    Is Jesus you Master? Are you spending time in His Word everyday so that you can know Him better and know how to please Him? Start today if you do not! You will never regret it.

“Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” (Psalms 119:105)

PRAY:

1.     Dear Jesus, You are my guide, and my commander. I look to You to lead me everyday and to be faithful even when I am not so faithful.

2.     Help me Lord today to spend time with You in prayer and in the reading of Your word. Show me what I need to know to be a better steward of this life You have given to me.

Thank you, Jesus for dying on that cross and taking the penalty for my sins so that You could adopt me as Your son or daughter, and to live eternally with You when You return to set up Your everlasting kingdom.