My wife and I were driving to a home we had never seen to help some friends who were preparing it for another family to move into. I typed the address into Google Maps, and we set off on the short trip. The voice told us to turn left, go straight, take another left, continue through a stop sign, and so on.
As we were driving along, the road turned from asphalt to concrete, then to gravel, and eventually to dirt. It was at this moment my wife asked me, “Are you sure we’re going the right direction?” Confident in the GPS (or at least refusing to admit my error), I insisted we push on until the voice announced we had “arrived at our destination”—right in the middle of a freshly harvested corn field.
Obviously, the map had been wrong, and we were lost. In that moment, we had to face the question: What do you do if the map you’ve been following is wrong? The answer seems easy. If the map is wrong, you need to find a better map.
But what if instead of a physical or digital roadmap, we’re dealing with a set of cultural maps?
“What if instead of a physical or digital roadmap, we’re dealing with a set of cultural maps?”
Some examples: Over the past decades, society’s definition of marriage has fundamentally changed. The gender conversation has moved from male and female to 70+ genders and counting. Or maybe it’s just male and female again, according to which government is in power? Beyond gender, what does it mean to be a man? Is masculinity valued? Or toxic? Ethnically and culturally, how do you navigate a world in which you are encouraged to love all ethnicities—which is good—while being told you’re inherently racist and prejudiced because of your own ethnicity? And I haven’t even mentioned a myriad of other issues in which society’s “maps” are constantly updating—careers, parenting, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, retirement, and on and on?
How do you know when the “map” you’ve been following, or the one you’re being offered, is wrong?
In 2 Chronicles 34, we run across the name Josiah, a king who is marked by several interesting characteristics. First, he was eight years old when he became the king (and who lets eight-year-olds be in charge of anything, let alone the nation’s throne?). Second, as a king, Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord,” in stark contrast to many of the other kings of Judah we read about. Third, he led a national revival in obeying the newly rediscovered Book of the Covenant.
“King Josiah led a national revival in obeying the newly rediscovered Book of the Covenant.”
If we were to sum up the reign of King Josiah, we might point out three movements:
To love God is to love His Word. We read that as a young, sixteen-year-old king, Josiah began to seek the God of his father David, following in the footsteps of a “man after God’s own heart.” When the Book of the Law was discovered in the temple, King Josiah paused everything to carefully listen to the words. And when he heard the words, he responded emotionally and physically, tearing his robes and instructing his staff to take immediate action.
To love God’s Word is to obey His Word. Having personally heard God’s Word, Josiah wasted no time in calling the people of Judah together and having the Book of the Covenant read in their presence. Josiah renewed the covenant between the people and the Lord, and he had the people pledge themselves to the covenant. He proceeded to remove idols and cleanse the land of idolatry.
To obey God’s Word is to find your way again. Having heard the Word, read the Word, and obeyed the Word, Josiah and the people of Judah entered a Passover celebration like nothing the nation had seen since the days of Samuel the prophet. This all happened in just the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign!
The people of God had completely lost their way, following a map that had misled them for years, and the solution was a child named Josiah rediscovering his love for God’s Word and then choosing to obey that Word.
“The people of God had completely lost their way, following a map that had misled them for years, and the solution was a child named Josiah rediscovering his love for God’s Word and then choosing to obey that Word.”
Sometimes churches lose their way, too. Sometimes they follow fallible maps—cultural seductions, less-than-biblical trends, and unwise leaders—until they find themselves lost and confused.
If you or your church has taken a wrong turn or two, let me suggest three next steps for you and your church to find your way again also.
#1 – Recognize that you’ve lost your way.
It is tempting to cave to cultural whims. Name any issue and there’s going to be a strong cultural pull—more like pulls from multiple directions—to fall in line. Powerful people, on the right or left, are all too eager to conscript churches into their agendas.
At my church, our leaders know, “You have to name a problem if you’re going to fix the problem.” If you’ve had that sinking realization that you or your church has been following the wrong map, the first step is always to repent. To be clear, repentance is not the same thing as mere regret. Regret is an emotion based upon failure or embarrassment. Repentance is a choice based upon realizing you’ve lost your way and desiring to go a better way. That better way is always available for those willing to humble themselves under God’s Word.
“Repentance is a choice based upon realizing you’ve lost your way and desiring to go a better way.”
#2 – Rediscover your love for God’s Word.
Give your time to rediscovering God’s Word. Schedule it if you have to. And when you look at the problem stretching out before you and recognize the work ahead of you and think, “I don’t want to,” that’s the moment you most need to devote yourself to God’s Word. In 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV), Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” Maturity requires us to do what needs done, whatever the cost.
Give your heart. Don’t race. Reject the temptation to be quick and efficient to the detriment of curious and wholehearted. Read the Word in large chunks. Refuse to look for cheap sound bytes that appeal to your audience—that’s likely what got you lost in the first place. Instead, marinate in the Word and allow it to soak into your own heart. And just when you think you have it figured out, listen to it again. You’ll fall in love with the Word when you’ve chosen to invest your time in it.
“You’ll fall in love with the Word when you’ve chosen to invest your time in it.”
#3 – Recommit to obeying the truth in God’s Word.
As a general rule, if you quickly read the Word, make a few notes, maybe learn something new, but then put it away and move on, it’s not going to do much in you. When we rediscover our love for the Word of God, it has the power to transform our lives, but only as we obey. As James 1:22 (NIV) says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
Whether you find yourself confused in the middle of a cornfield, frustrated at your desk, or hopeless on a Saturday night before preaching the next morning, the solution to finding your way again is found in obedience to the Word of God. Recognize you’ve lost your way. Rediscover your love. And recommit to obeying God’s truth, no matter how difficult it might seem.
