In 1979 a large passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, someone had modified the flight coordinates by a mere two degrees. This error placed the aircraft 28 miles to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. They had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises from the frozen landscape to a height of more than 12,000 feet.
By the time the instruments sounded the warning that the ground was rising fast toward them, it was too late. The airplane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing everyone on board.
It was a terrible tragedy brought on by a minor error—a matter of only a few degrees.
Each one of us have “One Thing” that we are designed and destined to accomplish in this life. One thing is the word of the day.
Make it your point, to get to the point.
Make the heart of the matter, the heart of the matter.
Make the main thing, the main thing.
Make the most important thing, the most important thing.
- Identify your “One Thing”
- Narrow your focus each day to the “One Thing”
- Never apologize for your focus
- Have someone keep you accountable for your goal
- Re-evaluate, Review weekly, monthly and yearly to determine if you are on the right course
If you are off course by just a fraction, you won’t notice how far off, until you get so far down the road that you have wasted or spent too much time and energy to realign or rebound.
Psalm 27:4 “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:”