There’s a story about a little boy being dragged down the street by a big dog. The boy is valiantly holding on to the leash as he is pulled first in one direction and then another. A passerby asks the little boy, ”Where are you taking that big dog?” The boy replies, ”I don’t know yet but when he decides where he wants to go, I’ll take him there.”

Many people go through life much like the boy, with no defined purpose, allowing themselves to be taken in whatever direction circumstances and those around them dictate. Paul warns us not to be ”children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.”

The world is always trying to pull us this way and that. We are bombarded from every side as to what to buy, where to go, how to dress and what to think. If we do not make a conscious effort to resist the powerful influences of advertising and the world it represents, we will find ourselves thinking and acting like everyone else.

The people of the world think of themselves as ”free men” when in reality they are all slaves. As Paul has rightly told us, we are servants ”to whom we yield ourselves servants to obey.” It is like the little boy who thinks he is taking the dog for a walk when in reality the dog is taking him. Whose leash are we holding? If the world is at the other end of it, then we are in the same dilemma as the boy. When it decides where it wants to go, we’ll take it there. Many younger people have gotten themselves in all sorts of trouble because they were holding on to the wrong leash and were led to places and did things that they never thought they would do. It all happens just one step at a time. This is why Solomon’s advice is so appropriate. He tells us, ”My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” If they should say to us, ”Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path.”

The key is knowing where we want to go. If we have a well defined goal and it is firmly fixed in our mind then the ”winds of doctrine” and the temptations of the world are not apt to blow us off course. This is the secret of success. This is exactly how Jesus and Paul did it. We know this is true for we are told that Jesus, ”for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” Jesus had firmly fixed in his mind the goal, and by meditating upon the joy of the goal that was before him, he was able to endure the terrible sufferings that had to come first. Paul used this same principle. He tells us to forget the things that have happened and ”reach forth unto those things which are before.” Paul says, ”I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

If the Kingdom of God is all our hope and all our desire, then we, too, will press on, paying little attention to the winds and pulls of the world around us. If the Kingdom of God is not a real goal for us, then we have trouble every turn of the way because all these side allurements seem so enticing.

How often do we lovingly hold the Bible in our hands and think, this book holds the revealed word of Almighty God! This book contains the mind of God. This book spells the difference for us between eternal life or eternal death.

Nehemiah had the right idea and the right answer. He knew what he had to do and was busy doing it. When he received enticing messages to turn aside, he said, ”I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?”

We have a great work to do also. Let this be our reply when others would distract us from our goal in life. Let our answer be, ”I am doing a great work.”