“But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.” 2 Chronicles 15:7

A few days before Christmas, we drove a long with our children’s pastorm his wife and another volunteer to take about 20 kids to see the holiday lights at the St. Albans City Park. It’s amazing how long a 45-minute trip can seem when the vehicle is bursting at the seems with elementary students. The lights were beautiful though, and hopefully there were some good memories for all of us. After our drive through the park, we were taking them to get dinner. Not all that familiar with St. Albans, I Googled for directions to the closest McDonalds.

The traffic leaving the park was pretty congested, and kids kept asking, “How much longer?” What started out as 8 minutes, turned into 15, and the hungry kids asked every 45 seconds, “How many more minutes?”

My navigation app wasn’t doing its best, and as I directed Shawn to go straight across the bridge, suddenly the app showed me that we should have turned before the bridge. Now the directions said to keep going across the bridge and make a left, then another left, and then another left.

It’s been said that two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do.

I can tell you those three lefts suddenly took us from 2 alleged minutes to 8 alleged minutes left, and our kiddos, not to mention us, were less than thrilled.

It’s a new year, and a new decade for that matter. It is a time when we tend to take a look at our lives and become inspired to fix some things we aren’t happy with. Maybe it’s our eating habits, or our organizational efforts, our exercise routines, or our prayer time. Those sorts of things tend to get some extra attention this time of year. We make the decision to do better, and then we usually do – for a time. But the weeks pass, and on a rushed day the frozen pizza is easier to grab for lunch than chopping a fresh salad, and oversleeping causes us to skip out on the quiet time with God, and we have a decision to make.

Do we give up because we messed up, or do we make those three left turns to get us back in the right habits we know are best for us?

It’s easy to get down on ourselves and determine that we can’t follow through with the plan we had. We might mess up, but one day or one week or one whatever doesn’t mean that we have failed. We are a little off course and need to make some adjustments to get back on track.  

So don’t get discouraged. If there are things you are wanting to change to make life better, make the decision every day. And if you mess up, make the right decision again tomorrow. Every day is a new opportunity to get it right.