Zigzagging through life

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

There is a parable for us in the story of a farmer whose dog followed him into town one day. As he was hitching his horse and buggy to a post in front of the general store, the storekeeper saw how hard the dog was panting, and criticized the farmer for making the dog run all the way while he rode in the wagon. The farmer responded, "That dog’s not tired from following me to town. What tired him out was all his foolish zigzagging. There wasn’t an open gate, a hole in a fence, or a tree stump that he did not explore. He is tired from zigzagging all over the place."

That’s the way far too many people live. They zigzag from one diversion to another, from one pleasure to another, from one thrill to another. They wear themselves out, but have no real idea of where all their running around is taking them. Late in life, the famous poet Robert Burns concluded that the biggest misfortune of his life was that he lived with no clear direction.

Jesus leads us along a narrow road to heaven. Satan knows that he cannot come onto that road and forcibly snatch us away from our Lord’s protection, so instead he sets up distractions off to the side of the road to catch our attention and tempt us to wander. Some temptations lure us into dangerous places where we get stuck and cannot free ourselves to return to Christ’s way. Some temptations are spread out by Satan in such a way that they draw us from one to the next, gradually leading us further and further away from the road to heaven, until we finally lose sight of it altogether and have no idea how to get back. And sometimes the devil spreads so many temptations along our way that, like the farmer’s dog, we get exhausted checking each one out, until we are too worn down to follow our Savior any more.

Like the farmer, Solomon calls such behavior foolish. The pleasures that Satan offers never live up to their hype; they just tease us enough to keep looking for more. But all that pursuing temptations results in is exhaustion, confusion, and despair. Jesus wants us to follow Him, because He knows the safest, most direct way to real happiness. You wander from His side at your peril.