Getting off track

“The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.”

Ecclesiastes 10:2

When someone gets off track, it means their life is heading in the wrong direction or they have trouble staying on topic. This idiom originated from the railroads because when a train is derailed, it can no longer function.

When I was a little girl, I rode the train for the first time to Louisiana with my aunt and grandma. I only remember parts of the trip, but I do remember crossing the Mississippi River and hoping the train stayed on the tracks.

It’s heartbreaking when someone we love continually makes decisions that are not righteous and their life is moving further and further from God. They create a ripple effect causing the lives of everyone in their wake to be disrupted. All we can do is pray that one day they’ll turn their life around because our words keep falling on deaf ears.

The good news is no matter how far off track we get, God's right there to pick us up, dust us off, and put us back securely on the rails in the right direction. If God can forgive Saul who hunted down Christians, he can surely forgive us. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”. I love this! John uses the word “ALL'' unrighteousness, not “some”. God wants us to re-establish a relationship with Him so he can be glorified in all we do. We can never give up on the ones we love because once communion with God is restored, they will have a wonderful story to tell.