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We've Lost Our Way Pat Boone What is it with us guys? Ask almost any wife, and she'll say: "Even when my husband is hopelessly lost — and he knows it — he still won't stop and ask for directions. "He'll keep driving around, hoping to stumble across the right road, and take us miles out of our way, just because he won't admit he's lost. It makes me crazy!" Sound familiar? Some years ago, Jack Klugman told me he had a terribly frightening experience. He and his wife were in the car, they were late, and he was trying desperately to find his way, although he kept ignoring his wife's insistent demand that he stop and ask somebody, anybody for directions. She got louder; he got madder; and before he realized what was happening, he'd pulled over to the side of the road and was strangling her! "I've got a bad temper, I admit," he told me, "and I just blew up. Thank God, I came to my senses and quit choking her. But that was the end of our marriage; we both knew, though, we loved each other, that it was dangerous for us to stay together any longer." Sad, isn't it? Funny, in retrospect, but sad . . . and all too common these days.
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What is it with us? I think it's several things: pride, overconfidence, obstinence, laziness — and a macho determination that "nobody's gonna tell me what to do!" I talked to a friend this morning. He was excited about this new GPS phenomenon, the global positioning system available in cars, gadgets, even cell phones now! I've got it in my car and it's terrific. They tell me it is, anyway. I haven't read through the instructions that came with it, so I don't know how to use it.
Yeah, I'm guilty too.
I intend to really figure the thing out, but I haven't found the time to get the manual out and go through the directions. So I depend, as usual, on my flawed and always errant sense of direction, believing I'll luck into the right destination. Almost never happens. But one thing I am doing, again this year as I have done for the last 15. Starting at the first page and continuing through the year right to the last page, I'm reading the creator's instruction manual. I call it "The Manufacturer's Handbook." Yes, the Bible. From Genesis 1 all the way to Revelation 22, in a very handy "One Year Bible," organized into 365 daily portions. Each day's portion takes no more than 15 minutes to read, and it consists of some Old Testament, some New Testament, some part of a Psalm and a few verses from Proverbs. I can't adequately describe the incredible feeling of worthy accomplishment on Dec. 31, New Year's Eve, as I read the 365 portion, and realize I've traversed and assimilated the whole Bible in one year — again. Nor can I adequately convey the sense of wonder, of cognition, of growing understanding of how society operates, nations rise and fall, how humanity increasingly loses its way, and still obstinately and ignorantly refuses to consult or even consider the manufacturer's handbook. Politicians and despots and scientists and economical wizards and philosophers all say, in effect, "Leave us alone. We know what we're doing, where we're going, and how to get there. Leave us alone with your ‘God's word'; nobody's gonna tell us what to do!" And they frantically concoct screwy concepts of how we came to exist and how we can dig ourselves out of the horrible messes we've gotten ourselves into — all without any reference to the instruction manual. Just like the hapless, clueless driver, stubbornly trying one wrong way after another, refusing to pull over and ask directions from someone who knows. As I started my annual reading this year, it was with a growing sense of foreboding and futility, a sense that nobody — not the "new" Congress, our administration, our military, not the U.N. or NATO or the European Community, economists, philosophers, strategists —nobody has the answers, or is likely to come up with any. And on Jan. 2, I found myself reading from the second Psalm:
Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. "Let us break their chains," they say, "and throw off their fetters." The One enthroned in heaven laughs: the Lord scoffs at them. Then He rebukes them in His anger . . . And a little further on, this admonition from the inspired writer: Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Let's all confess the tragically, painfully obvious. We've lost our way, we don't know where we're headed, and we don't even have a clue about how to get back where we started. There's a violent storm coming, we're running out of gas, and we can't find our way home. It's time — way past time — to get out the manufacturer's handbook, and read the directions.
Editor's note:
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