“Hi, my name is Adam, and I am Directionally Challenged”… If they had 12 step group for “stubborn people who don’t ask for directions, Ever!”, I would be the first to join. So there you have it, I am a dude,and I took the first step, I have finally admitted it-” I am directionally challenged”. I hope all the women out there reading this are happy now  . And it’s not like I get lost for the fun of it either, like some sick people do, “we just love to get lost, it’s an adventure “, save those kind of sentiments for a chick flick.  Adventure my ass , getting lost sucks. And getting lost happens to me, a lot.  I will get on my bike, in my car, my kayak, or my own 2 feet and somehow along the way, I think I’m going one direction, and end up somewhere else, and even worse, it’s usually  somewhere  I have been before- somewhere I have been before many times. like today for example… I was driving my car to meet my other dude friend, “Will”, for a lunch meeting at a place I have probably been too before  at least a 1/2 dozen times and it happened, it happened faster than a bald man getting a buzz cut …. I WAS LOST ( Again). And you want to know why I finally figured out after driving aimlessly, cussing at myself and random streets signs that I realized that I was lost. Well just so you know it wasn’t my dang, “reliable” , GPS/DAYPLANNERMP3PLAYER/BOMBSHELTER/”I STILL CAN”T FIGURE THIS THING OUT AFTER 1 YEAR SMARTPHONE”… no, it wasn’t that at all, It was when I stopped being so dang distracted by my smartphone, “mystery machine”, and actually paid more attention to my driving than checking my email, my texts, my facebook, and those following my blog ( Totally shameless plug here: you can follow my blog by clicking “follow” at the top of this page & then you can make my day  ), that I saw it, and it actually registered I was on the WRONG BROAD st, actually I wasn’t even on broad at all. Because I was so distracted I had been driving on MAIN st the whole friggin’ time ever since exiting the highway. In fact, If I wouldn’t have been so distracted to begin with, I might have noticed where I got lost in the first place. Distraction while driving, anywhere, is never a good thing. You would think that I  learned this at a young age in my driving “career”, ( which by the way got a late start, but that’s another blog for another day ), but directionally challenged people are stubborn….

Shortly after getting my license I decided that I would show off  my coolness ( or lack thereof ) and drive to a friend’s house in my parents white mercury sable ( ya, you know your jealous ). Now my friend was having a party, a big party, a party where everyone knew me, where everyone knew that I had JUST FINALLY gotten my “licence”. So, I drive up, go in, show off my mug shot with a mullet ( oh the 80′s ), hang out for a while, and then decide that it’s time to depart in style. I do this by inviting everyone out to check out my ride, and invite all the “hot” girls ( this was Pre-wifey of course,  and now she IS the ONE & ONLY hot girl in my life ), to get in the sleek old man sable for a joy ride. And of course since i’ve got them there, I might as well impress them with the factory installed cassette player low-budge sound system and blast some beats right? And that’s just what I did- I got in the car, invited a dozen ( probably more like 3, 16 yr. old girls in the car, but who’s counting ? ), blasted some def beats and began to slowly back out of the driveway. … it was great-  girls in the car, music blaring, people waving, me smiling… people waving more, me laughing, me schmoozing the girls more…. people waving more vigorously, guy who owns the Mercedes that was parked in the driveway next to me before pulling out yelling something at me ( I  decide I am glad that he’s as excited at this moment as I am )…. oh wait a sec, he’s not good excited, he’s bad excited, he looks really mad actually… I stop, roll down my window, and I ask, “what’s the deal bro?”… in my life is sublime in my mercury sable tone. … the “deal” is that I almost get my face knocked in because while backing out of his driveway in my “super sable”, I sideswiped his Benz from headlight to bumper- Oh happy day! Actually, from that moment on it was not happy at all, Not happy when I realized that I would forever go down in history as the , “sideswipe sable dude”, in front of all my friends. Not happy that I would have to drive home to my parents and explain/get lectured/explain/get grounded & lectured/try to explain again/Get grounded, get the, “you might have to quit high school and work 40hrs per week at some greasy spoon the rest of your life to pay for what you’ve done  ” talk.  And, most of all,  not happy because the cause of all this was that I WAS DISTRACTED….

Distraction is a horrible, destructive thing. It  happens quick, and it happens slow. Sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly. It pulls us away from  people, from places, from the present moment we are to be fully engaged in. I have been distracted in my life way more than I want to admit. I have been a distracted pupil,a distracted peer,  a distracted partner to my wife, a distracted parent, a distracted pastor. And….

I have been a distracted pursuer.

God has set a course for me, a journey. But I don’t always like the direction He sets me in or the route He has me take. Sometimes it seems hard, sometimes it doesn’t seem to make sense. Sometimes It’s easier if I just take the wheel. Since, I would rather be in control.

And since I think I’m better at  being in control of this journey, I’m sure I can handle a few added inputs along the way, sometimes His voice is just a bit too quiet, or maybe  it’s too loud and I choose to turn it down all the way to a whisper so I can be distracted by my own voice, and the voice of others.

And that’s when I get lost…. what should be broad st. quickly becomes main st. in my life, a Sable sideswipe’s a Mercedes in my relationship with Him. I totally get distracted and lose direction.

So ya, I admit it, I AM DIRECTIONALLY CHALLENGED. I am stubborn and self-focused. I want to be led, but don’t really want Him to lead.

Maybe you can relate…

Maybe you’ve been lost on the journey. Maybe you can’t find your place.

God knows where you are, where you’ve been, and where your going.

God’s pursuit of us is never Distracted or Detoured or even dependent on our own aimless wanderings.

God is fully present, fully engaged, fully aware of us all the time.

And He direct us and distracts us with Himself alone, by wrecking us with His love- time and time and time again.

So- I am directionally challenged for life,  directionally challenged to be wrecked by Jesus and put back on track.

I am distracted.

So distracted by His love that everything else try’s to matter, but can’t.

Noted. By Adam Babs