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I’ve said before that I read Seth Godin every day, and often his principles apply to ministry, mission, or my life with Jesus. He published a story on April 21, 2019, and I decided to save it without even knowing what I would use it for. But as I was filing it, the application came. See what you think.

Seth wrote,

Steve Pressfield relates this magical story: A Ghurka rifleman escaped from a Japanese prison in south Burma and walked six hundred miles alone through the jungles to freedom. The journey took him five months, but he never asked the way and he never lost the way. For one thing he could not speak Burmese and for another he regarded all Burmese as traitors. He used a map and when he reached India he showed it to the Intelligence officers, who wanted to know all about his odyssey. Marked in pencil were all the turns he had taken, all the roads and trail forks he has passed, all the rivers he had crossed. It had served him well, that map. The Intelligence officers did not find it so useful. It was a street map of London.

Seth applies the Pressfield story: Happy endings come from an understanding of the compass, not the presence of a useful map. If you’ve got the wrong map, the right compass will get you home if you know how to use it.

Often we get exercised because someone doesn’t seem to be using the right map. “They don’t go to our church!” “They’re not in the right denomination!” “Their theology is all wrong!” (Of course, you understand that people from different churches, different denominations, and different theologies are saying that about one another.)

In the middle of all of it, God’s work gets done. People come to Christ listening to preachers I would never listen to or responding to approaches I would never use. People I don’t agree with are feeding the poor or running hospitals in third and fourth world countries. Why? Because regardless of their map, their compass is working: they love Jesus. And God honors and blesses their efforts. (Please see my blog on the Holy Spirit.)

I know this metaphor has limits just as the Pressfield/Godin story and application have limits. But I believe we’d be closer to fulfilling God’s work in the world if we spent less time refining our own or critiquing others’ maps, and spent more time heeding our compass: our day-to-day relationship with Jesus.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13.34, 35, ESV)

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30.21, ESV)