Don't Forget To Turn North

This time last year, I turned the page to 2021 with Deuteronomy 2:3 as the preface. “You have circled this mountain long enough; turn northward.” I didn’t just want to turn north however, I wanted to stay True North. Consequently, leading to the title of 2021 or my One Word for the year - COMPASS. 

My desire was for Jesus to be my true north. Not a person, an event, or the possession of a material thing – just Jesus.  I’m sure many of us have this same aspiration. But I have a tendency for other things to lead my decisions, my focus, and my reactions. As you may know a compass can be shaky at times because of the magnetic pull to the magnetic north. The magnetic north shifts and changes over time. True north, though, is a fixed spot – unchanging. When other stuff starts to pull my attention away from Jesus, I get shaky. I start circling the same mountains. Only going east or west – when I should be going northward or up. 

Following Jesus as my true north meant plotting my course by coordinates and boundaries, provided by Jesus in his Word, to avoid any shipwreck in my life. When I started to feel like I was being “tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind” (Ephesians 4:14), I would say to myself, “Don’t forget to turn north” and fix my eyes on Jesus – my steady compass. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  

It was time to stop circling those mountains and start scaling them. Time to start ignoring the many distractions and influences that surrounded me. Like social media, past hurts, people pleasing, perfection, success or failure, all things that would alter my course. I needed my spiritual needle to point towards the truth. To point towards the way. To point towards the life. With Jesus as my true north, I can advance toward any troop; with him I can scale any wall (or mountain) and stop going round and round. It’s up from here. 

 Here’s to all the treasure we will find on our way up in 2022!