Resetting Your Compass

Resetting your inner compass is something everyone can do. Many voices are calling out to harried, time-deprived people. Following are some suggestions for resetting:

1. Turn off the computer.
2. Go to bed earlier and get more sleep.
3. Experience the anxiety of cell phone deprivation.
4. Turn off the TV, DVD, video games, and so forth. Sample the quietness.
5. Eat simply to live. Reflect on the challenge that multitudes with whom we share the planet face daily—simply eating to live.

Resetting one's inner compass is a good thing, especially in these times.

Discovering a sense of direction and renewal can only benefit one's quality of life. It is true for the broader community as well.

In a recent article, Gretchen Morgenson identifies key signs that indicate moral and ethical danger zones for corporate entities. She believes these signs should prompt the business and economic sector to reset its moral compass. Resetting the moral compass should occur:

1. When it is evident that the time has come to rein in risky behavior.
2. When we're doing too much of what we want to do because we can, with little thought of future consequences.
3. When inner warning bells indicate the proximity of a "moral hazard" issue, the uncomfortable state of affairs that occurs when we allow desire to drown out common sense.
4. When it is evident that we are permitting ourselves to study ways to circumvent religious, moral, and ethical guidelines.
5. When, as Christopher Whalen, editor of the Institutional Risk Analyst says: "We have prostituted our standards."

One of the focal points of Holiness Today has always been to facilitate the pursuit of practical holiness.

This is why we often describe our invitation to subscribe with the words, "everyday faith." It's about absorbing content helpful to fine-tuning your moral compass.

One may ask, "Don't sanctified people have a reliable inner moral compass?" And the short answer is "yes!" The challenge arises, however, from magnetic force field interference. Mariners know that the compass should be mounted where it is shielded from potential interference. Other mariners use technology to "cancel out" such interference so the compass readings are always true.

Resetting your moral compass may not be required, especially if you are walking in obedient fellowship with the Lord. Shielding your inner moral compass from the force fields of a world at war against righteousness, however, may be a job for every Christian. Canceling out the spurious influences of such attracting powers can be accomplished by unrelenting devotion to Jesus.

Resetting your inner compass could quite possibly add years to your life. Keeping your inner moral compass free from course-changing influences will keep your soul true before God.

David J. Felter was editor in chief of Holiness Today.

Holiness Today, May/June 2011

Please note: This article was originally published in 2011. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.