How to Know When Your One Thing is the Right One Thing

You can be on the wrong path, and either minimize it, or not even be aware that you’re on that path.

Every 52 minutes in America, someone is killed by a drunk driver. Think about people getting into the car and driving drunk.

One of the reasons we minimize being on the wrong path is we say to ourselves, “It won’t happen to me.” We think, I’m in control. I know better. I’m not going to end up in the same place that other people end up.

If you’ve been to Niagara Falls, you’ve seen the powerful Niagara River, coming down and dropping hundreds of feet. Over the years people have fallen into the Niagara River and gone over the falls. Thirty people have intentionally decided to go over the falls. They got into a barrel, a boat, or they wrapped themselves in bubble wrap – they did something – to try to go over the falls. Of those thirty that went over the falls, only 16 survived. They thought, It won’t happen to me. I can make it. I’m going to be okay.

The Bible has some practical things to say about coming to an understanding of are we doing the next right one thing.

Many people are doing ONE THING, but it’s the wrong ONE THING, taking them to the wrong place.

Intentional Living is a principle; it’s a law of life. It’s something God has put in place, and it works for evil, and it works for good. There are people on our planet who are very intentional about evil and they’re being highly successful at it.

As you think about what it means to live an intentional life in Christ, the question to ask yourself is, “Am I on the right path, pursuing the right ONE THING?”

Bronnie Ware is an Australian author, songwriter and motivational speaker, best known for her writings about the top deathbed regrets. She interviewed hundreds of people either in hospice or near the end of their lives, and she asked them what the things were, if they could go back and live their lives over, that they would do differently, and what paths would they get on that would be different than the path they were on, leading to that point in their lives.

People told her five things:

• I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself and not a life others expected of me.

Isn’t it true we can live our whole lives, caught in the expectations of people? As a Christian, we want to be caught the expectations of God.

• I wish I hadn’t put my work before my family and other important relationships.
• I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.

So many of us live a lifetime captivated by worrying what other people think and have never been able to really connect with other people.

• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
• I wish I had let myself be happier.

For some of us, it’s a hard thing to just allow yourself to be happy in life.

Now, these interviewees weren’t necessarily Christian people, but I think the message is clear that it’s possible to be on a path and at the end of your life, look back and have regrets. In fact, I would suspect many of us do.

The key verse for the lesson got me thinking that if you can be on a path to destruction and death, and it seems right, then isn’t it possible you and I can be on a path every day that doesn’t necessarily lead to death, but it leads to pain, to mediocrity and to regrets? It could lead to just a life that we live but doesn’t lead to where we really would like to be in what God intends for us.

It’s possible for those of us as Christ followers to be on the right path to heaven, but the wrong path of our daily lives. We are not immune to stupid. We hide it under the façade of religiosity.

So today’s focus is not on being on the right path to heaven, and I pray you all are. If you’re not you need to be. God loves you and he has a plan for your life and being intentional isn’t going to get you into heaven. Being intentional is going to help you have a better life, be more fulfilled and bring glory to God and benefit to yourself and others.

Solomon wrote the words to our verse today. And I think it’s important to circle the words seems right because there’s a perception that can happen in our own minds.

• The relationship seemed right.

I’ve heard that in counseling over the years. It seemed right. We know statistics about fifty percent of marriage in the divorce, something wasn’t right.

• New businesses seem right when they start.

And yet the stats are that after one year, twenty percent have failed after ten years, two-thirds of all businesses have failed.

• The investment seemed right.
• The habits seemed right.
• The decision that I made at that time seem right.

I’ve been around long enough to know that you and I could be on a path that seems right, but we may not know if the path we’re on is right until a few years down the road because we live in a fallen world.

The message today isn’t to say, “Hey, I’m always going to be on the right path,” because you’re always going to be on a path at times, and you look back and say, “I shouldn’t be on this path.”

Seven Danger Zones

Let’s look at seven danger zones to consider when we’re picking a path to get on. This is not about perfection. We’re all going to make mistakes. Many paths that I’ve been on my life, I regret, and wish I could go back and start over. I mean that’s just part of the process of being in a fallen world.

1. We are in the danger zone when our short-term actions are disconnected from our long-term goals.What we allow is what we will continue in life.
   • How we use our time is a short-term decision.
   • The people that we allow into our life is a short-term decision. Friends that we pick.
   • How we spend money today? When we bring credit card out or not bring credit card out.

   How I’m being intentional today has ramifications on tomorrow.

   You should have some basic goals in your life – places you’re headed and things that are important. Now we don’t know if we’re going to get there, necessarily because as we’ll see in a little bit, it’s going to be up to the Guide to decide if that’s a goal that’s worthy of accomplishment.

   But getting up every day without a sense of where you’re headed discounts God’s intention for our life. Paul says in Philippians 3:14, “This one thing I do – forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press towards the goal.”

   In the midst of all Paul was going through in his life, setting one goal that would drive him was critical.

2. We are in the danger when feelings drive our actions.You’ve heard me teach about head, hand and heart people. Those of us who are head people, maybe don’t wrestle with this as much as those who are more driven by their emotions, but our emotions can get us in trouble.As I was preparing the lesson, I remembered the words of a song Barbara Mandrell co-authored back in the seventies and eighties called “How Can It Be Wrong? One of the lines of the song says: “You run to me; I reach out my arms; when I hold you close, it makes me feel so warm … and we’ll slip away and be together tonight. How can this be wrong when it feels so right?”That’s a powerful question. That’s where our world is today.

   As followers of Christ, we’re not immune from this. We live in a feelings-oriented culture, drawn in by our emotions.

   • • Moses killed the Egyptian because he was angry.
     • David when he looked over the wall and saw Bathsheba. He reacted to his emotions, and we know where that led

   .

   Feelings kill people. We’ve seen it on the streets of America. People are killing people out of an emotional reaction. We’ve got people doing stupid things that are going to affect their lives and the lives of thousands of others, as a result of emotions overtaking their lives.

   Feelings are destroying health and damaging relationships. When I was in ninth grade, I was in the band. I played saxophone. And the trombonists sat behind us. Mike, who played the trombone sat right behind me.

   After a concert one night, our band director just laid into him in front of the rest of the band because of not measuring up. Mike went home that night and killed himself.

   Now that was the reaction that he probably wouldn’t have done two days later. Or someone could have gotten to him. People who respond with suicidal thoughts, if we can hold them for a day or two their minds will be cleared, and they can think this through.

   People who have emotional and mental issues, often are responding to their emotions and allowing their emotions to drive them, which is a dangerous thing.

   Proverbs 16:32 says, “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty.” And I love this next part of the sentence – “and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.” If we can control our emotions with God’s help, that’s better than ruling the city.

   We only need to turn on the news see people today who rule cities and yet, they are going down. Cities like New York could be at a place of great power, but if you can’t rule your own emotions, you can’t rule your own city.

3. We’re in danger when we deceive ourselves by saying this is God’s will, when it’s not.This is a problem in our Christian community. When I hear people say, “God wants me to be happy.” A red flag goes up immediately because I know what’s going to follow is going to be stupid, or dangerous or destructive in their life.Way back in the early days of Family Life Radio, we hired a young man at the station to come in on the weekends. He would get on the air and preach.I would remind him, “Listen, that’s not the format, and the next weekend, he would do it again.

   Finally, I said, “You can’t continue to do this.”

   He said, “God told me to say it. I report to Him – not to you.”

   But God didn’t tell him that. God doesn’t contradict himself. So, I said to him, “God bless you. You can say what you like. But you aren’t going to say it on air.”

   We can be so convinced that God has told me something that we violate Scripture. All of us at some point have done things out of our emotions, and we knew it in our heart, so we had to give credit to someone. So we said, “God told me to do it,” instead of taking responsibility for acting on our own.

   Scripture must be a guidebook for us when it comes to the path we chose to get on.

   James 4:14 says, “You do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” That’s how we should live our lives.
   I’ve learned over the years when I’m ready to make a decision or do something to say, “God, this year will (fill in the blank), And if this is your will, please reveal it. If it’s not, speak to my spirit, or have someone that I trust, who is accountable speak your wisdom to me. Saying, “If it’s God’s will,” instantly reframes it and puts it into a different perspective.

   It’s not about me. It’s about what God would have for me.

4. We’re in danger when we react versus respond in life.A lot of us do this. I think this is a cousin to being driven by our emotions, isn’t it? Instead of responding to life, we react to it. And it’s the reactions that often get us into the trouble in our marriage, it gets us in trouble in the workplace, gets us trouble with our neighbors it gets this trouble in our country. We’ve got people sitting in the halls of leadership in Washington who are reacting every day, instead of responding and resolving issues.Proverbs 18:13 says, “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and a shame for him. Donna and I have been married fifty years. Sometimes I can finish her sentences. That is a stupid man. Right? But we do that our relationships too.Often we take a position way too soon, and then we defend it. It breaks my heart when people refuse to fix a problem because they become hardened in their hearts.

   God called us to be men and women of integrity. When we allow ourselves to react to something –

   • we’re not happy with
   • that’s not right
   • we have an opinion on.

   And reaction drives us in a way that later, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we look back and say, “I did not honor God. I reacted instead of responded or resolved an issue.”

5. We’re in danger when we have poor decision-making habits.What are some of the habits that can cause us to make poor decisions?
   • We can either to be too quick to make a decision.
   • We can be too slow to make a decision.
   • We can be too trusting.
   • Or we may not trust enough.

   I think about Paul talking to young Timothy. 1 Peter 1:7 says “God has not given you that spirit of timidity and fear, but of power and love and a sound mind,” which is powerful.

   Psalm 37:23 says, the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. As a person, who wants to be right with God we want to make the right decisions about what path we’re going to be on in our lives, picking that next, right, ONE THING to live a life that honors God, being focused on him.

6. We’re in danger when we ignore godly counsel.One of the best days of the year for me is whenever our board meets. They have wisdom and bring a different perspective. It’s important to be in a small group, where iron sharpens iron,
   being with people you can trust, who can speak into your life.We are also in danger when we receive bad counsel. Proverbs14:15 says, “The simple believe every word, but the prudent man considers well his steps.”Be careful who you allow to speak into your life and give you counsel.
   • If you’re going through a marriage problem, be careful we you talk to because some people are going to say “oh, I feel so sorry, put their arm around you and encourage you to do something stupid, instead of speaking truth into your life.
   • If you’re going through a personal problem, don’t let someone, who feels sorry for you, encourage you to do something that later you’re going to say wasn’t the right thing. We need to people to speak into our life good counsel.

   We all need people, who—

   • Are smarter than we are.
   • Are growing.
   • Love God.
   • Know what you’re going through but can speak truth.
7. We’re in danger when we are restless versus resting.1 Timothy 6:6 serves as a reminder that godliness with contentment is great gain.We can feel a restlessness in our lives that’s healthy. God can us restlessness, but restless can also destroy us.Emotions are like a fuel. God allows us to have emotions to drive us in a direction that can be healthy. We can be angry but choose not sin (Ephesians 4:26). We can take emotion and allow it to drive us toward resolution, resolving issues, or responding to life in a way that heals relationships.
   1. Respond to situations don’t react.
   2. Seek godly counsel and then listen to it.
   3. Develop good decision-making habits, and
   4. Rest in God and be patient.

Again, remember, you and I can be on the wrong path and either not know it, or we can minimize it in our lives.

John Piper wrote a book for young people just getting started in life titled, Don’t Waste Your Life. He wrote:

“You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know a few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them, die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things but who have been mastered by one great thing.”

If you want your life count, you don’t need to have a high IQ. You don’t have to have good luck, riches, or come from a fine family or fine school. Instead, you have to know a few great,
simple, glorious things. Or one great all-embracing thing and be set on fire by it.

Doing the next right thing can be as simple as, “What am I going to spend money on today?” or “Why am I here on this planet?”

I hope you will become more aware of these seven danger zones. God has great things in store for you. Choose to be intentional every day to make sure that the path that you’re on is the correct path. Make it a point to be very intentional about how you think, how to deal with your emotions, your relationships and your behavior.

This month’s bonus teaching is “Freedom in Christ.”