“You! I demand you immediately forsake everything you believe!” That wouldn’t work.
But drift would. It always does.
Ed had sheep. I’d never been around them and was curious, so I watched them, moseying, grazing all in a group. One whom I’ll call Ewevonne jerked her head up, staring at Nothing. For miles, lots of Nothing. Zero. Nada. I know: I looked, too. Nothing.
Didn’t matter to Ewevonne. She stared Nothing right in the eye, then took a hesitant step. All her posse’s heads jerked up, they followed her stare, all with narrowed eyes, squinting right at Nothing.
Ewevonne stalked on, still staring at Nothing. Posse followed. Soon the entire flock of fifty or sixty sheep were like ink dots on a yellow pad, all off on the horizon, following Ewevonne whose intent goal was Nothing. Had you asked where they were going, not one of them could have answered you.
Sheep can’t talk. If they could, they still couldn’t tell you. That’s the beauty of drifting; it doesn’t matter what starts a drift. It only matters that you get people distracted enough from God’s truth to follow Ewevonne.
Drifting. Doesn’t take much of it to wind up way off course.
It works. “It’s crucial that we keep a firm grip on what we’ve heard so that we don’t drift off.” (Hebrews 2:1)
© D. Dean Boone, September 2016