Hello, I’m Ford Taylor with FSH Group and Transformational Leadership. Welcome to God Today. You know, there was a time in my life that I owned a company and our company grew very large. I partnered up with some other people and it continued to get large. And we found ourselves being the number one company in our industry in America. I found myself being the CEO of a company, of a size of a company I never aspired to be.
Seeing my name and our company name in the trade journals at the top it led me to a lot of pride and arrogance. I actually started thinking I was God’s gift to business. I started doing a lot of travel and in that travel, I found myself in a place that I said I would never do. When I got married I swore I would never get divorced. I would never cheat on my wife. There I was in the middle of cheating on my wife. The good news is that when I confessed it all to her she forgave me and now we have a great marriage.
I realized as I was going down this road – I call it the “road to Neverland”. These things we say that we’ll never do in our lives sometimes we get this gap of who we really are and who we put ourselves out to be. That gap between our real self and our ideal self can lead to a lot of stress. Slowly, over time, we get off this road that says “I’ll never do that.” Maybe we travel, we have some disconnect with our spouse. This was my Neverland. Then emotional, spiritual, physical disconnect. More travel. Then I found myself attracted to somebody else. The next thing I knew, I did the very thing I said I’d never do. Because I was too prideful, I was arrogant. I believed there was nothing I couldn’t handle on my own.
Later I developed this concept of people I call “bumper buddies”. People that we bring alongside us built on love and trust. That they would love me enough to tell me if they see me getting off the road. I could trust them enough to tell them if I felt my mind or my heart wandering off of any road that might keep me from doing the things I said I would never do. Once I surrounded myself by those bumper buddies I realized the closer I brought them to me, then all of a sudden they were on the road with me. That narrow road, that thing we call “the narrow road to righteousness”, it automatically got wider. Because I had those people on the road with me. They kept me bumped – they were my guardrails.
I encourage you. If there is anything that you might be getting off the road on, those things that you might say, “I’d never do this, I’d never do that.” But, maybe the little temptation is seeping in. That you would consider going to some of your friends, some of your relationships and saying, “Could we be in a relationship that we would bump each other back on the road if we see each other getting off? Could we walk in a relationship with 100% trust? That I could trust you and tell you anything in the world that I needed to tell you? You would love me enough to tell me if you see me getting off the road?”
I’d like to pray for you now that you would stay on that road and that you could bring people into your life. You might call it holding you accountable. I call it love and trust and bumping one another. Father, I ask you now in Jesus’ name, that anybody that is listening to this right now that might be completely off that road or might be slowly getting off that road. That they would have the courage to go to someone or “someones” in their life and share with them what they’re thinking, where their mind is wandering, where their heart is wandering. And offer them to be in that loving, trusting relationship. That they could become guardrails for each other to keep them on this narrow road to righteousness. So Father, give them the courage to go share what it is that’s going on. Find that person that understands love, understands trust, understands forgiveness, that they could walk on this road together. This road to you, Jesus. We ask this in your name. Amen.