Battle Drill #14:

Plan Your Route!

Proverbs 7:1-27 (NAS95)

Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine to learn the next battle drill – “Plan Your Route!” I have some stories to help illustrate today’s lesson:

1) Learning land navigation in the military is a significant investment of time, energy, and resources for infantry soldiers. We spent a lot of time working on the skills necessary to do this during the day and in the night. My body has the marks to show how hard it can be, especially at night, just like our souls bear the scars of how hard it can be to plan our routes properly in life, especially in the valleys of the shadow.

2) Ranger school taught me the need to know my location when on mission. At any time, you may need to pivot in place due to attack or unexpected changes. You need to learn to know where you are on the map by looking at the terrain around you (providence).

3) On a road trip you can’t blindly trust your GPS, or you may end up a dead end or in a place you never intended. You need to know how to use a map to double check your route.

Let’s learn how we can train this battle drill so that you can live on mission today.

Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.

The battle drill we are going to learn and apply this week is from Proverbs 7:1-3:

My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

To better understand how I am applying this Scripture to learning how to plan your route, you need to hear the rest of this passage so I will continue reading from Proverbs 7 with verses 4-27:

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your intimate friend; that they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words. For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice, and I saw among the naive, and discerned among the youths A young man lacking sense, passing through the street near her corner; and he takes the way to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the middle of the night and in the darkness. And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. She is boisterous and rebellious, her feet do not remain at home; she is now in the streets, now in the squares, and lurks by every corner. So she seizes him and kisses him and with a brazen face she says to him: “I was due to offer peace offerings; today I have paid my vows. Therefore I have come out to meet you, to seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt. I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses. For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey; he has taken a bag of money with him, at the full moon he will come home.” With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver; as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life. Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, and pay attention to the words of my mouth. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths. For many are the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all her slain. Her house is the way to Sheol, Descending to the chambers of death.

We know what the Field Manual says, let’s now take the second action step to learn how to apply today’s battle drill to our everyday lives as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.

1) Reading a map, to include plotting points and use terrain association skills along the route.

2) Using a compass to include setting an azimuth (the direction of travel between two points).

3) Learning your pace count (the ability to track distance traveled in a specific direction).

Here is how the two connect so that we can see how we are training them together as the church:

Action Step #3) Seek the Commander’s approval.

There is an expression that I used earlier and that I now want to explain to you so that you can learn how to seek God’s approval in your life before all else and in doing so plan your route: “Jesus is our true north.” Allow me to explain this to you by sharing from a research article:

The expression true north is based on a fact that navigators and surveyors must deal with every day: a magnetic compass is not a terribly reliable instrument. A magnetic compass points toward the magnetic north pole, which is not the same as true north, or the geographic (or geodetic) north pole. The difference between magnetic north and true north is currently a matter of several hundred miles—but it changes, due to the fact that the magnetic north pole drifts several miles a year. The earth produces a magnetic field. The places where the lines of magnetic induction converge are called the magnetic poles. The location of the magnetic north pole changes over time. In contrast, true north is a fixed spot on the globe: the true north pole is found at the conjunction of the lines of longitude, the point at which the earth’s axis exits the globe. Magnetic north varies position from year to year; true north is unchanging. Because the needle of a magnetic compass points toward the magnetic north pole, not the geographic north pole, it is not entirely accurate. It may give a general idea of where north is, especially in the middle latitudes, but it can be wildly unreliable in the regions closer to the poles, varying by 20 to 60 degrees. The difference between magnetic north and true north is called declination, and it varies according to where one is located on the globe. To compensate for declination and find true north, we must perform some mathematical calculations using an up-to-date chart or calibrate our compasses. Adding to the confusion is magnetic deviation, caused when nearby metallic objects or electrical equipment influence the compass needle. Deviation is especially a problem inside ships and airplanes and in areas containing a lot of metal ore. Like declination, deviation must be overcome, usually by means of auxiliary magnets, in order to find true north.[1]

Therefore, when you hear it said that “Jesus is our truth north” you know now that means that Jesus is the constant, unchanging source of truth and life. As Hebrews 13:8-9a states, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings…” Jesus concludes His sermon on the mount with these critical words of how we are to apply His teachings to our lives and in how we are to plan our routes, from Matthew 7:24-27:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.

Action Step #4) Live on mission by keeping Jesus Christ as the true north of your life.

Is your life off course? Do you feel lost? Do you need a course correction or an altogether new route for your life? “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life… “ (John 14:6)!

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-true-north.html (accessed May 13, 2022).