INSPIRED TODAY: LEAVE THE HORIZON

I haven’t done much of sailing, but I have been on little speed boats within Lagos. However, from geography I know that the horizon is the point where the sea meets the sky. Ancient sailors used the horizon as a reference point to calculate their progress. They had various ways of calculating the distance between the ship and the horizon. I won’t bore you with navigation lessons, but there is a vital lesson we have to learn from this. Sailors mark the horizon as a set goal. The captain tells the crew “bring me the horizon” and they go for it.
In our day to day activities, we often set certain goals for ourselves. We give ourselves time bound targets, which is good as it helps to monitor one’s progress in a certain endeavour.

However, when these goals are achieved, some of us tend to relax and dwell on the present achievement. You know what? It is like sailing out of the lee, and after one full day of sailing you anchor the ship in the middle of the sea because you have reached the point you calculated as the horizon.

The interesting part of navigation is that when you reach the point you marked as the horizon, there lies another horizon. After one achieved goal, there is more. That isn’t the end of your life. It only

means a minute phase of it has been concluded.

The sailor can’t see his destination because his line of sight isn’t aligned with it. Yet there is a temporary focus—the horizon. Every horizon he reaches brings his line of sight closer to his destination. You can’t get to your life’s destination if you don’t set those goals as temporary markers and if you don’t leave the achieved ones behind. No! Not until your line of sight is fixed on your ultimate destination, when the officer of the watch announces land

Rid yourself of the complacence. Stop drinking the stale waters of past achievements. Press on. Don’t let down your anchor in the middle of the voyage. It was a brave step to have left the lee, but leave this horizon as you left the lee. This is why Paul, who is one of the most successful people who ever lived, could say “….I have finished the race…” However, he couldn’t have made that statement in the second letter to Timothy if he hadn’t practised this principle. In his letter to the people of Philippi he said “brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind (the past horizon, achieved goal) and straining toward what is ahead, (the horizon ahead the current set goal), I press on toward the goal to which I have been called.”

Friends, this is a new day. Make that shift from that point of a past achievement. You may have beaten your target by achieving it earlier than you projected, but I put it to you that it isn’t your destination, it’s just a horizon. Leave the horizon as you left the lee.