Its ok to back track

I am one of those guys that doesn't like to ask for directions. Yes the sterotypical male here. When it comes finding where I'm going I like to use a quote from the eloquent Charles Barkeley "I may be wrong, but I doubt it". Every once in a while my pride gets the better of me and I end up being late. I hate this. I like to show up to places exactly when I want to be there. I know that sounds stupid but I don't want anyone or anything controlling when I show up besides myself. Sometimes I like to be early to an event like a Jayhawks game at Allen Fieldhouse. I like to be in my seat fifteen minutes before tipoff so that I can take in the wonderful enviroment. Sometimes I like to be right on time to things. Like waking up on Sabbath morning at 11:27 and being in my seat at church at noon. Sometimes I like to be a little late to things. Like any social event you don't want to be the first person to show up. So in essence I like to control my time destiny. When I don't control my time destiny I get angry. So today was the combination of not asking for directions turning into a loss of time control. Here is the situation. I was supposed to meet a couple of students from Ozark Academy at noon to take them out to lunch and try to answer any questions that I could about Union. Ozark is quite a little trip from Union so I decided to drive to Kansas City and stay at my folk's house the night before so I would not have to get up at four in the morning to make it for lunch. I left my folks house at eight o clock. That should have given me plenty of time to make it Gentry by 11:30. Then I could sit back and chill till I had to take them out. This is a good plan in theory. Now I have been to Ozark about eight or nine times but I wrote down directions from mapquest just to make sure. On the way down I listened to six hundred different people on the radio dissect the national championship game and why Tyler Hansbourough will be a bootsy pro. This is all fine. Now by the time its eleven o clock I am closing in on Ozark. I have plenty of time. I take a couple of turns and I am following the directions when the moment came. You know what moment I am talking about. The time where you come to the fork in the road and you see something familiar one way but you aren't exactly sure if that is the way you should go. This all happens in a split second while you are driving. Your options are to go with your gut or to go the way that could possibly be the right way but you aren't sure. So guess what I did. Thats right I'm a man. So I take this turn and I start convincing myself that I made ther right move...still kinda unsure...better ask this hobo looking guy walking down the street...roll window down...."excuse me sir is Gentry this way?" "yup". I am convinced. So I started driving and I am going up and over hills and threw valleys and it is an exciting roller coaster of a drive. Ten minutes later I am in the land of the where am I. Then all kinds of questions are popping in your head. My least favorite question and probably the most important one is "should I backtrack"? I hate backtracking. I think all males do. Not only is it the white flag of surrender. Its the concession of the wasted time that you have to backtrack. If you go fifteen minutes in the wrong way you waste thirty minutes total if you decide to backtrack. So I do what I think is right but what couldn't be more wrong. I decide instead of back tracking I will find a new way to get there going this way. Long story a teeny bit shorter I got even farther away and what was almost being thirty minutes early ended up being thirty minutes late. I think this happens to alot of us. We are going along in life and we come to a fork in the road. Its not always easy to tell which way to go. One looks familiar. We choose the direction and it doesn't take much time for us to realize that we have made a mistake. Except we fight it. We don't give up. We keep going deeper and deeper and we are getting farther and farther away from the truth and what is right. We think that since we have gone this far we might as well find a new way to get there. But the new way is a mirage. It isn't there. We are drowning now. If we had decided to back track a while ago we would not be in this new terrible situation. What could have been happiness is now guilt and shame. We make it harder for ourselves. There is only one way and it always works and it will always be there. We will all make mistakes but He is great and He will forgive. He will do it every time.