Derailed
“No one is able to plan his own course.”
Jeremiah 10:23
From my Journal 2004-2005:
God is working on me. As I awoke this Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m., God’s Holy Spirit within me opened the “eyes of my understanding”1 to the obstacle that keeps me from “following the Holy Spirit’s leading”2 in every part of my life—Self-confidence. It is the Self-assurance that I can get out of any jam I find myself, any bind I put myself and any trap in which I fall, that creates the delusion that I “have it all together.” This is the great fallacy of a man’s thinking—Self-power—that one can overcome all things in his own strength.
As I look back to the days of my youth—high school and then college, graduation and then career—I realize that Self-confidence, Self-assurance, and Self-power caused the jams, binds, and traps in which I found myself. The resource, Self—confidence, assurance, and power—was relied on to save me from the problems—jams, binds, and traps—however, Self was the very reason for my downfall in life as I made choices regarding marriage, career building, success, money and wealth. I reasoned that if I made a wrong move, I could make the next right move to correct it. In my naivety with life, I failed to realize that the choices I made had lifelong implications and consequences.
Consider the game of chess. Once one of the chessmen is captured, it’s taken off the game board forever; there’s no second chance. However, one can always start the game over with a fresh slate and learn from experience the best moves to make to win the game. With life, starting the game over with a whole new set of pieces all in their original positions is not an option. Life decisions have, in some cases, irrevocable consequences. Why? Life decisions affect other people. My decisions impacted the choices and lives of others as did their decisions due to the cause-and-effect chain of events that puts life in motion—and guess what? I was not the conductor; I was not the one in charge.
As much as I wanted to believe that I controlled my own life and affected the outcome of my choices, I began to realize over a course of experiences that it might have been wiser to ask the Conductor in which direction He was headed! By the way, on which line of travel are you stepping through life? There are several, and to simplify this metaphor on choices that provide life with direction, I will focus on three major travel lines: the Self Train Line, the Soul Cruise Line, and the Spirit Airline.
As the 6:23 a.m. train approaches the crossing of our neighborhood with its horn blaring, it reminds me of traveling on the Self Train Line. “Here I come,” the horn seems to blare. “Get out of my way,” it continues to blast, “I’m coming through!” When I made the choice to travel through life on the Self Train Line, the song echoing in my head was “it’s all about meeeee!”
Through my choices based on Self, I did not consider their effect on others and most importantly, choices based on my Self-desire did not consider the Lord’s will for my life. When I traveled on the Self Train Line, I was stuck on the tracks of the decisions that were “all about me.” At each stop the train made, people boarded that would affect my life and people departed, those representing resources that left my life. My hope was in the chance that as this train made stops, it would pick up more of the good than the bad in life and that favorable consequences would outweigh negative ones. What is your ability to effect change in your life if you are traveling on the Self Train Line?
Choices are limited to the changes in direction and routes available at the stations at which the train stops. These stops represent the crossroads of one’s life, events that require decisions that could change life’s direction. Sometimes we are so caught up in our self-preservation or possibly asleep at these crossings that we are unaware of options and choices that could affect important outcomes regarding prosperity, morality, and eternity.
I woke up to my own circumstances and found the Self Train traveling through a long stretch of wasteland. I found myself stuck in my own Self-directed travel plan. I could choose to ride it out or consider changing tracks in the midst of it. I was becoming despondent over the lack of options that my Self-directed plan provided. I could only see what was directly in front of or behind me, all that whizzed by me was out of my grasp as this Self-directed Train headed towards its outcome—the end of the line. Does this remind you of any choices you have made? Do you feel stuck in the life you have placed yourself?
When I considered this, I began to realize that Self-confidence could be a façade of confidence, a false assumption regarding my own power to direct the course of my life. Then the reality of my travel through life’s events hit me with the impact of walking directly into a wall—I was on the wrong track! What choices would you consider at this point?
I considered deserting the train on which my life was traveling. It appeared to be an easy way out of my predicament. But this option became more complicated as I considered the roots I had established with the baggage I had accumulated during my journey on the Self Train Line. Selecting a different track became a complicated move and the cost of making the move seemed out of the question. When I made the choice on which line to travel after I graduated from college, I was young, traveling light with just one bag stowed away, a bag of “stuff” of which I had yet to learn to let go from my childhood and youth. Little did I know at the time that this “baggage” would affect the selection of the “stuff” that I would accumulate during my journey on the Self Train Line. If you are at a crossroads, and your heart desires change, which travel line would you choose?
How was I to get “back on track” with the life about which I dreamed? My life’s dream evaded me day after day as I moved farther away from any reasonable way to obtain it with my own efforts. I was only in my mid-thirties, but the pain and struggle of my situation seemed like what others referred to as a “mid-life crisis.” The “mid-life” reference is a misnomer and doesn’t represent age; but rather, a point in the midst of life’s travel when it is realized that life isn’t going (and hasn’t been going for a long time) in the direction intended.
This was a significant turning point in my life. I was on the Self Train Line—the fast-track, cross-country express—that traveled at high speed, made few stops, accomplished great distances and was equipped with the latest in technology. It stopped at the major cities, places teeming with distractions of the world. The stops were a place to get off, get loose, and relieve the pressure-cooker stress of riding an “espresso” train of life—“life in the fast lane.” Each stop took its toll on me as I made choices that fed the Self—confidence, assurance, and power—that drove my decision-making. Relationships began to break down, and resources dwindled, and I started to react impulsively to my situations, foregoing the “strategic plan” that originally set my course.
There was a stop on the Self Train Line that marked the “end of the line” during my mid-life crisis. At this stop, I was forced to make a decision. The express line had reached its destination, and all passengers had to depart. One could select another train line traveling up or down the coast or head back from where he or she had come.
I was exhausted, depleted and “burned-out” from my express trip through life on the Self Train Line. Along the way, I had allowed events at train stops to distract me from my marriage, family, and career. I made choices that fed my Self-desire, ignoring the consequences that affected others at home and on the job. I collected more baggage from these stops—I became burdened with the bondage of “wrong choices” (the politically correct, societal term for sin). My marriage wasn’t exciting enough, my job wasn’t fulfilling enough, and my free time was consumed with relieving the pressures of climbing the corporate ladder of success. I didn’t have enough, couldn’t get enough, nor fast enough. My personal life took a nosedive, and as a kamikaze pilot with a damaged plane out of control, it destroyed my corporate career. My marriage died, and I buried it. The financial house of cards that I employed to build a business fell apart as my lavish and playboy tastes consumed my resources. I had acquired more baggage as a consequence of squandering my marriage, family, and career. I was at the end of the line. The cross-country trip was over. I had no choice but to make a change, for my state at the time was a rock-bottom mess.
I began to search for alternatives to the Self-directed train of life. My past decisions had led me to the wrong destination. I was alone. My family was broken. My business career path had ended. I could work, be gainfully employed, but I had no direction. Aimlessly I wandered. I was hurting and vulnerable to the quick fixes of a bleeding heart. Something was wrong with my Self. I needed help for my Self. Self-help! Yes, I’d found the answer! I needed help for my Self since my Self-confidence, Self-assurance and Self-power had disintegrated into Self-pity, Self-indulgence, and Self-deprecation. I poured my Self into Self-help books, attended seminars to enlighten my Self, and listened to tapes to unleash the “power within” my Self. I learned about Self-empowerment and how this would lead me to my Self-destiny defined by my Self-desires, Self-goals, and my Self-esteem.
Derailed and dejected by my “crash and burn” career, marriage, family, and personal life, I looked around trying to figure out how others found pleasure in living. What were they doing to find freedom from their troubles? How was I to lift my Self from my bottomed-out Self-esteem? Lost and wandering, I needed to escape the world I had created.
Next: Unstable and unsettled as a wave of the sea, drove and tossed by the wind.3
Praise to Our Father for the words He has given me.
Jeff Cambridge
Copyright © 2004, 2005 Stellar Rhema Ministry
References
All Scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of International Bible Society. “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark office by International Bible Society.
Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.
1. Jeremiah 10:23
2. Ephesians 1:18 NKJV
3. Galatians 5:25
4. James 1:6
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