Where your road leads

Lately, I find myself "borrowing" the wisdom from my pastor to use in my blog. Can't help it. He's got a good message. This week made me think a lot about the paths we take. You don't always think that what you are doing right this moment has a direct impact on your life days, months or years from now. Same for your kids. When your daughter talks back to you, do you say "it's just a phase" or "it'll pass"? You think that your child will grow out of his bullying ways in 10 years? Or that the daughter listening to lewd pop music lyrics won't emulate them when she's a teen? Think again. When's the last time you knew of a person who changed? I mean, really and truly changed? If you're headed in a bad direction, that is where you will end up. The road you are on will always take you where it leads. Confusing, I know. Think of it this way. You want to go to Chicago so you leave New York and head south on I-95. Why would you be surprised that you ended up in Florida? It's not the road's fault. It's yours. You got on the path and you kept following it. Kids will follow a path and it's up to you to make sure it's straight. But if yours is all screwy, theirs will be too. "Oh, I can call my husband a jerk, but I know my kids won't." "I can roll my eyes when someone annoys me, but my son won't do that to me." "I won't tell the grocery store clerk she accidentally gave me too much change. That's not really stealing, right? But, girls, don't you put that lip gloss in your pocket unless it's paid for." See where I'm going with this? Little things mean more than you think. And that little detour or wrong turn can make you two hours late getting home. It may seem like a little bump in the road, but those little bumps will turn into a sinkhole if you don't avoid them. I hope you'll take a few minutes after you read this to think back to a mistake or bad decision you made in your life and then think even further back to what led to it. Think about a bad decision you've seen a friend or relative make. Did you see it coming all along? Did you know they were on the wrong path? Sometimes, we don't see that we're on the wrong road. We're too involved in the journey to look at the bigger picture. We're right in the middle of downtown and have no idea what the satellite picture of the map is showing us. So many of us these days use GPS to navigate our way on the road. Maybe you need to do the same in the pathways of your life.