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Several days ago, a friend read something I had written. It was an allegory, and I thought what I had written was very clear. Funny thing was, she didn’t get it at all. In fact, she thought that what I had written had a completely different meaning than what I had intended. We visited, and after I assured her I wasn’t going to the dark side, she suggested that I insert the meaning of the allegory in the story.  I thought about what she had said, shared it with my husband and of course, she was right. I did need to explain what I was writing about. If someone I know and trust did not get it, how could I be assured that everyone reading it would also get it? I needed to make a course correction on that particular piece of work.

Sometimes, we can be a click off. You know, not a lot…just a little. It doesn’t seem like much but if not corrected, we can be way off further on down the line. Did you know that if you are only one degree off on your trajectory from earth to the moon, that by the time you should have reached the moon, you would be 4,169 miles off? You wouldn’t miss your expected destination by a little, you would miss it by a lot. 

It’s hard to listen to correction from someone, but many times, we need that objective voice to speak into our lives. I really appreciate my friend’s opinion on the piece, that’s for sure. What if 4,169 people read it and didn’t get it? I would be so sad that I had given people the wrong idea. 

What about you? Has someone spoken into your life and you are not listening? Are you balking at the thought of making a course correction? It’s not easy to consider another opinion on your work or the direction of your life, but we must do it if we want to stay on our expected trajectory. After all, we don’t want to miss what we are aiming for!

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” Proverbs 27:6