Is Your Life Level?

Linda and I took this week to head north and vacation in Wisconsin. We love the outdoors and have already slid down waterfalls, hiked the bluff over Devil’s Lake, and worn ourselves out with some vigorous biking.We prefer “glamping” to camping (I guess it means “glamor camping”). In other words, we have a camping trailer with a bathroom, shower, kitchen, and bed.But it’s important to level the camper when parked at a campsite. I normally use a small but reliable level that I place on the floor of the camper. I recently picked up a new one, that was longer, larger and easier to read. But after leveling the camper, Linda and I went inside and we felt like we were walking uphill towards the back of the camper. I put the new level on the floor and the bubble was in the middle. I put my old level on the floor and it was so far off that the bubble wasn’t even visible.My new level wasn’t accurate. Not even close. I threw it in the trash.There are some instruments that have to be in perfect working order. A level is that way. It’s a simple guide, but if it doesn’t work right, it messes everything up. Many airplanes have crashed and lives lost because of faulty instruments. Pilots thought they were doing fine until they crashed into the side of a slope. Those instruments that tell you whether or not you are level and heading in the right direction are the most important.That’s also why so many lives crash and burn. They can appear to be operating perfectly on the outside, but because they have faulty indicators, their lives are off-level. Even though they think they are doing everything according to plan, it all falls apart and they wonder what happened.They had a faulty level.Faulty levels include: popular secular culture, how they do things on sit-coms or the movies, what their friends think make sense, even what they are taught in school about life, and maybe the way their parents and grandparents lived.So many life philosophies are based on a faulty system because God is left out. If we don’t start with him, why he created everything, especially us, and live life according to the level and compass he provides in his word, we end up living with faulty indicators. We think we  are heading in the right direction, only to crash on the side of a mountain that we didn’t know we were heading toward.God knows more about you and I than we know about ourselves. He knows more about life and how it works than you, me, Hollywood, your college professor, and even your parents and extended family. If you want your life to work, you have to start with that realization. Then you have to use HIS level to determine right and wrong, character and integrity, and HIS compass to give you direction.So what are your foundational indicators. What level are you using?Are you reading it?