Stay focused, Grandaddy

It is at least three and a half hours from here to Edisto Beach. And when you are in a jeep with no windows you can’t listen to music, so you think a lot. The first half of my trip I was by myself and thought a lot of thoughts.

I’m considering a series of blog posts on words you don’t hear anymore in church. One of them is backslider. On my way down to Orangeburg I was thinking about what it means to backslide. The obvious meaning is to slide back, go backwards, lose the progress you’ve made to that point. Then I had the thought, “It’s not always about going backwards as such, sometimes you go sideways, you go off in a different direction.” Since I was unable to write anything down, my mind jumped to the next thread.

I made it to Orangeburg, where I met up with Mary and Anne and her crew for our traditional lunch at Chick-fil-A. Aimee, Drew, and Scarlett rode down with Anne (Dave and the other boys drove separately). Aimee wanted to ride down to Edisto with me in the jeep, so after lunch we were off!

There are two ways to get to Edisto: you can go on down I-95 to Walterboro or you can get off at Canadys and go through the country. I always get off at Canadys! I mean, you get to go through Round O and Jacksonboro. Very pretty drive with little to no traffic. Basically, the only thing we saw was a couple of men standing in the road with rifles. Ha! Hunters!

Anyway, you take Round O Road until it runs into Jacksonboro Road. Well, hard surface Round O ends here, but across Jacksonboro Rd there is a sandy road that continues. When we got to it I commented, “I wonder where that goes.”

Aimee immediately exhorted me, “Stay focused Grandaddy, stay focused!”

Yes, indeed. I turned right and continued on to Edisto. But my mind immediately returned to my thoughts on backsliding. What a good picture this was! I came close to being distracted, losing my focus and direction, and getting sidetracked. The goal today was Edisto. There was nothing down that road equal to Edisto Beach. “Stay focused, Jeff. Stay on the road to Edisto.”

Is that not how backsliding works sometimes? Paul described the attitude that should be ours:
Brethren, this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And why? If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Oftimes we get distracted, we see a little dirt road and wander down that instead of pressing toward the mark - the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Stay focused. Stay on the path. And if you've taken a side road, turn back to the path that leads to glory.

You see? A word rightly timed!

let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,

and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith