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As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:1-3).

Last week, I offered a devotion on finishing well and this past Monday on starting well. I ended by alluding to the possibility of mid-life course corrections. That is what I want to pick up on today.

I’ve taken several trips across North America. Today, with GPS’s in our cars and on our phones, it takes some effort to get lost. Before such technology, when we used Triptiks from CAA it was much easier. For years, we had a big map atlas that had a page for each province and state. Of course, these quickly became outdated, thus inaccurate. On occasion, we would lose the road we intended to take and would have to find our way back.

Such diversions happen in Christian discipleship as well. From time to time, we need a course correction. The words of our text are helpful in this regard. They contain two pointers for us.

First of all, they remind us that God’s calling to us is not primarily about our ‘occupation’ in life. Rather, our calling is mainly about character, “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love”. Jesus is more concerned about how we live than what we do.

And second, Jesus is concerned that we have a healthy connection with the fellowship of believers. He calls each of us to contribute in a healthy way to the life of the church. We all need to participate in a way that leads to both unity and maturity in the fellowship.

“Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ” is the title the NIV editors gave this section. I think they are spot on.

Starting well, finishing well, course corrections are all good things for us to reflect on. However, we need to ensure that we ponder them from a Christian perspective. You see, often, we think about those things from the perspective of ‘worldly success.’

An old bumper sticker read, “the one with the most toys wins.” Toys are not necessarily material possessions; they can be accomplishments of any kind. Some form of kingdom we have built for ourselves. Something we can point to on our death bed and say, “I built that.”

I doubt that God will interrogate us when we meet him. But, if he were too, he would not ask us “What did you do?” but he would ask, “How did you live?”

If its time for a mid-life course correction, it is possible that you need to consider what you are doing. But it is more important to consider ‘how you are living.” Are you living a life worthy of the calling you have received from Jesus?

Are you being ‘completely humble and gentle; patient, bearing with one another in love’? Are you ‘making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace’?