Life's most practical GPS

     
The old question, “If you were stranded on a deserted island and could have only one book, what would it be?" has been answered in many ways. People's interests vary and it's hard to imagine what a given person might choose. We don't have to wonder about Bernard Baruch, however. This prominent American financier and statesman has already supplied the answer – A Practical Guide to Boat Building. Should he find himself on that deserted island he would do something about it; not read a book.
       Minds run in different directions. Some are always in the land of make-believe. That's where difficulties are solved by deciding not to think about them, but by embracing the unknown and pre­tending it's real. One military strategist during World War I is said to have recommended that the problem of German submarines could be solved simply by draining the ocean. When asked how that could be done, he said, "That's your problem; mine is theory.” Society needs its dreamers, but nothing would ever get done if the execution of the dream were left with them. Dreams don't come true without the doer.
       A different mindset is to keep working until the perfect plan emerges. But this approach is bound to fail because it can never be fully realized. Time is spent researching the infinite complexity of the issue believing that the solution is just around the next corner. Quest for the perfect trumps the acceptable. So the theoretician re­doubles his efforts to come up with the perfect answer. Life on the island, thinking about the perfect solution, is better than returning to the mainland.
       The first decision to be made, if one's goal is to get from A to B, is to find out where B is. If the destination is not known, there is no road that will take you there. And this is the problem that surfaces again and again in life as we experience it. Our minds are distracted from what is genuinely important, so little or no time is spent on how we can get there. For the moment lets put Bernard Baruch on the island (his "A”) wanting to get back to the mainland (his "B".) So how can he get there? His answer is straight forward – by building a boat, of course, and that requires a good book on how to build it. There's nothing quite as helpful as knowing how to get where you want to go. Pragmatism is the friend who drops by with the answer we should have thought about right away.
       I believe that there is one "B" that's of ultimate importance. If B is heaven then the manual you need to read is God's Word. We are all on the same island and the vast majority of us would like to get back to the mainland, heaven. Fortunately the instructions are clearly detailed in Scripture.