Traveling the right course?

I learned several years ago that there are influences on our belief systems far beyond our awareness. Although each of these influences may be weak, the sum total does affect our lives in major ways.

This was learned as I was studying how to improve my personal goal setting. It was explained that if we do not have goals that we set, we still have goals that are created for us. The goals that we purposely define for ourselves must override the goals set for us by the people and events we encounter along our life’s journey.

Goals are suggested and formed by our parents, our teachers, television programs we watch, the music we hear, and the many books and articles we read. In fact, everything we experience “programs” us as to who we are and where we are headed. Our environment and our experiences influence and shape our expectations and what we believe is achievable for ourselves. Our personal “world” helps us to form our opinions, our prejudices, and our desires. Everything we see, hear, read, and experience provides data that our minds accept as true or reject as false. Regardless if the new data is accurate and true, it is too often accepted or rejected based upon what we have previously accepted as real.

With that being said, consider in contrast the cruise missile. These super high-tech missiles are precisely programmed to reach their targets. They must fly very low to evade radar and fly very fast. They are piloted by programs which include three dimensional terrain and urban maps, sensors, gyroscopes, and global position system transceivers. They have the ability to fly between hills and buildings just a few hundred feet above the ground. Climbing and dipping and turning, they close in on their target near the speed of sound.  They are guided by objects they “see” and identify in route and data they receive by satellite. They too have a “brain” and are constantly taking in data and comparing it to the programmed course, and instantly making adjustments all the way to the target.

Our brains are somewhat similar. We too, are constantly making adjustments attempting to stay on course until we reach our targets. However, our brains are not so precisely programmed; everything we see, hear, and experience gets evaluated against a foundation of what we believe. Unlike the cruise missile which only deals with factual information, our brains have to deal with perceptions real and unreal.

Joliet, IL Park District - A hiking trail near Bird Haven Greenhouse.

The potential for problems are enormous and with great frequency come to fruition.

The first cause of problems for many of us is that our goals are poorly defined, so we make irrational adjustments in our course toward unclear objectives. We never come close to our potential to live happy and abundant lives.

Even with clear objectives, the second cause of our problems is our realities are skewed, if not horribly warped. Even when we receive very good and accurate data, we may dismiss it because it does not agree with our “reality” or belief system. We reject it, and continue to making wrong turns up blind canyons frustrating ourselves and wasting days, years, or our entire lives.

The third cause of problems is that much of what we receive is bad information coming from unreliable sources, perverting our belief systems even more and directing us to places we do not want to be.

So, how can we fix it?

First, let’s define our destination. 

In the Seven Laws of Success, a booklet I read over thirty years ago by Herbert W. Armstrong, he proposes that to be a true success we must first fix the right goal. In Proverbs and other scriptures we find that our personal goals are in vain.  In order for our goals to have lasting substance they must be aligned with God’s plan – and His objectives must become ours, if we are to be a true success.

Therefore, we need God to re-write our program. We need to rely on Him to map our course and guide us along the way. We need Him to be the Lamp at our feet as we travel some otherwise very dark and scary paths. We need to study His Word daily and look to the examples He set before us and follow a path already forged by His Son, Jesus Christ.

We need input to be true and accurate, and only He can provide that. We must realize that most of what we think to be true is not true, and that it is at least incomplete and/or insufficient. We should not trust and heavily rely on so much inaccurate data – we must seek His truth and make wise decisions accordingly. We must be careful to reject information corrupted by those who have ideas contrary to the true gospel.

With the right goal fixed, and the course set before us by our Heavenly Father, we cannot miss.  Just as a cruise missile accurately finds its target, we too shall reach our God-given target if we do these things.  However, as a missile reaches its target, it unleashes death; when we reach our Creator’s target, it produces life eternal.