resident alien day 3: johhny get your compass

At one point in my life I studied for my state watercraft license through a program. It was both intensive and extensive for a kid my age but what stuck in my mind were all the stories my instructor shared of his sailboat's keel being caught in lobster pot markers and "TV makes dead cows".

TV makes dead cows was a mnemonic device I thought up to help me remember how to adjust my compass on my chart. There is a formula you follow and a few numbers you plug is so that you literally don't go "off the chart". TVMD was stuck in my head and even now, thirty years later I can recall it.

TV = "true compass reading"

Makes = magnetic reading

Dead = deviation

Cows = compass

Proper orientation is vitally important when living as a resident alien and a follower of Jesus, but most of us neglect it as the first priority of the day. If you start to sail before you calculate your compass and orient your chart you may think you are going the right direction but in reality you are not. You maybe only a couple of degrees off "true", but over time that slight angle will increase until you are way off the mark. How often does this happen in our day?

So, how are we to orient your internal compass as we live here?

One great tip we have developed in our church is to keep up with the daily readings from our lectionary. These are a collection of scripture readings from the psalms, Old Testament, New Testament, and a Gospel reading. They rotate yearly and are collected so that your read and understand the great themes (characteristics of God) and the meta-narrative (over-arching story of God's redemptive work in history) of the Bible. The readings are spread across the whole Bible so that we can adjust using all of the characteristics of God. Too often people read only the Gospels or the New Testament when come to faith. This has the effect of only using the magnetic readings and neglecting the deviations. We see a piece of the direction but not the whole chart.

Here are some tips to use this great tool (the lectionary readings) to keep you on track as a resident alien;

1) Read before you even take your shower. Yes, I understand some are not "morning people" but even if you get just a few verses in your mind it will keep you from drifting.  Just like sailing, adjust yourself before your journey. If you get them inside you in the morning you can chew on them all day.

2) Stick with it. If you miss a day, as with all spiritual disciplines, just jump right back in. If you wander off course it is best to stop and readjust.

3) Develop a method to help. We send out the readings each morning via an email. It hits our inbox before 6am! You can print these up, bookmark them, whatever. If you have the chart in your possession you will use it.

Orientation is important. If you don't know where you are starting from you can't get anywhere.