A glance.

That’s all it took for my heart to stray and my mind to slip into autopilot. In that mental mode, I fly way too close to the treetops. Stay there long enough, I will crash. Oh, yeah, most definitely. And burn!

For a moment, I wandered off the path in my stray-dog thoughts. I stumbled—a brief 30-seconds-at-the-most stumble but real nonetheless.

Those lines are not easy to write. After all, Ellen edits my stuff and subscribes to my blog. Thanks, honey. I appreciate you. I really do. Really!

The ONE has a way of entering into my thoughts in those moments and re-directing them. I can fight the ONE. I have. I do.

But I didn’t this morning. I allowed His influence to guide me. Because I know His thoughts and direction lead me upward and onward. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9, NIV).

To allow my heart to lead, rather than His Spirit, will tumble my life into a black hole. See, without the ONE’s influence, the autopilot inclination of my heart is to fly toward its native land—THE DARK.

Think about this for one moment.

You think, say, or do something you know—absolutely KNOW—is wrong. Maybe I’m bringing up some bad memories right now. Maybe I’m way too close to home. Maybe this post cuts way too deep. Maybe you play for the LA Lakers.

Sorry, if you watched the game I watched Sunday afternoon, you know two or three players did some very bad things. Their mothers weren’t too proud of them on Mother’s Day. Those big, bad men went to a very dark place. Exactly the place I go when my heart seeks its natural habitat. Exactly the place a glance took me for a short ride this morning.

When I fly into the dark, I want to hide. I don’t want to tell anyone. I want to keep my darkness-loving thoughts a secret. And secrets grow big—they multiply in the dark like mushrooms. Or cockroaches. Yuck!

But the ONE desires to bring me into the light. I’ve gone through enough actual dark days—in fact, as I write this, midday looks like late evening at our house—that I know I love the light. I dance in the light. My heart soars in the light. Anyone who goes through weeks and weeks of no sunshine knows how the human soul longs for light.

And we were created for the Light of the world. The JOURNEY moves us toward the Light and toward HOME.

QUESTION: How do you pull yourself back from those dark moments? In my case, I prayed. To be more specific, I confessed.

For further reading about light and dark, I recommend this link: http://richardburkey.wordpress.com/ and “Follow the Ru into the Gu.”