I just finished “The Principle of the Path” by Andy Stanley. It’s his newest book. I heard a talk he gave on that very topic. It was about a 15 minute pod-cast and I thought it was really great. I was looking forward to reading the book, thinking it would expand on his talk.
He did expand, but it seemed to me he took almost 200 pages to say what he could have said in 50. It would have been an awesome 50 pages, and probably more powerful. What I love about Andy is how quickly, easily, and succinctly he gets to his main points. This book just didn’t feel that way. But, the core content – which could have been said in 50 pages – was true to the Stanley style: simple, memorable and powerful.
Andy’s main point: good intentions do not lead anywhere. They are simply intentions. Direction, not intention gets you where you want to go. Direction takes steps…moving. We always end up where the road we choose takes us. Whatever our hopes and dreams, it doesn’t really matter unless our choices take us there.
It’s a really good point. If I desire to have meaningful relationships, but never spend time with people, I probably won’t end up with close friends. If I want to be healthy and have energy, but don’t eat well, get enough sleep and exercise, I will end up without the energy I desire. If I intend to grow in faith, but never spend time investing in things that take me down that path, my good intentions are pretty meaningless.
Andy explores what keeps us from taking the path to where we want to be. It all boils down to choosing and following through on what we decide. He brings out the importance of getting counsel, focusing our attention on the right things, owning up to our “stuff”. We don’t drift down the right path, we take it.
The most challenging chapter for me was about things that grab our attention and then serve as distractions from what we really desire. Distractions often start as small things, and then somehow grow to take tons of time. Suddenly we don’t have time to do those things that take us down the path we want to go, because we are side-lined by other things. It really made me think about what I spend time on. When I have a couple of hours do I just do whatever “grabs my attention” or do I determine what would be valuable and choose to do that? What do I spend most of my time doing? Is that taking me to the destination I desire?
If Andy re-wrote this book as one of his small, read-in-an-hour books I would recommend it to tons of people. For now I will recommend the pod cast, or borrowing my book and reading the highlights. He makes great points, even life-changing ones. He just took too long to say it.
