Been thinkin'... again!

I was thinking about the times I've been at Myrtle Beach and been playing in the waves. I know where we placed our things on the beach and intend to stay near that spot, however, inevitably as we face the waves coming in we seem to drift. It's not that we try to drift, it just seems that we get carried along in the moments and suddenly stop to get our bearings. When we realize where we are supposed to be we start walking back that direction.
How many times in life do we know where we are supposed to be and we are carried along by life as it ebbs and flows? Sometimes the drift is in our vision of where we see ourselves being. Maybe it's a direction more than a goal and we know that we have to take corrective steps to get back in the right direction. For a company or church the drift can happen at good and bad times. We can get carried along in directions by dealing with all the good options and without stopping to be headed in the best option direction. It can be that we get caught in a "riptide" and are carried away by the bad... could be economy, decisions, personality conflicts. At times we have to stop and gain perspective. We have to remember where we were and where we intended to be and take steps to get there.
Being a pastor this thought takes deeper meaning. Personal relationships can have drift. The marriage relationship is one that is easy to have drift and there's always a need to have both people stop and consider where they were headed together and then take steps to get there!
Still, deeper still, is the relationship with have with God. Sin can be as subtle as innocently drifting. How many times I've stopped to examine my life and thought, "When did I get here?!" With a word of repentance I express my sin and begin the directional change to get where I know I need to be... headed toward Jesus!
I would venture that we all have moments where we allow ourselves to drift. But we also need to build into our lives moments to stop and reflect to see where we are. Instead of asking "why or how" we need to refocus our minds and ask God to lead us where He would take us. "Help us God to see what opportunities this allows us as we venture back toward and to You." Amen.