Turn North

I was cleaning out the garage with the door wide open when a little sparrow came to join me. Seeing me, he wanted to leave. Disoriented, he flew toward the window fluttering helplessly. Both my husband and I tried to guide him gently with a broom handle toward the opening—toward freedom. He only fluttered the harder until we were afraid he might hurt himself.

After his resurrection, Jesus stood by the Sea of Galilee and called out to the disciples who were out on a boat fishing (John 21:1–6). Jesus asked if they’d caught anything. He knew the answer before they gave it. “Throw your net on the right side of the boat,” he suggested. This would have been considered unusual because fishermen of that day always worked from the left. When the fishermen tried the right side, they could barely haul in the catch.

We can easily slip into routines that have lost their usefulness. We can adopt methods that were meant for someone else. We can start listening to the many lies around us. We can get trapped into negative relationships. There must be at least a million mountains that we can circle mindlessly and never get anywhere. The little phrase “turn north” we find in Deuteronomy 2:3 is important. God directed his people who had been wandering in the wilderness to go in a new direction.

When we are lost or disoriented, facing north is often how we can reorient ourselves and find our sense of direction. If we know where north is, we can stop going around in circles.

When the sparrow was fluttering about in our garage, it was only after my husband went outside and gently knocked on the window directly in front of the sparrow that he dared to look to the side and saw the huge open door. He reoriented himself—and flew out to freedom. Sometimes in the journey through grief or forgiveness, we need to be reoriented. We need to look north. We may need to do a reality check on our lives, listen to new ideas, respond and learn new ways.

Wilma Derksen is the author of The Way of Letting Go: One Woman’s Walk Toward Forgiveness. You can find her at WilmaDerksen.com or follow her on Facebook.