What Direction am I Heading? | Jake Vayda

Sunday, July 19th, 2026

This week in our How Life Actually Works series, we continued through Proverbs by looking at character and the direction of our lives. We asked an important question: what direction am I heading?

We were reminded that character is who we are becoming through the choices we repeatedly make. Small decisions may not feel significant in the moment, but over time, they shape the path we are walking and the person we are becoming.

The invitation is simple: don’t drift. Allow God to direct your course, guard against what pulls you off course, and practice what keeps you on course. Because wisdom is not just knowing the right path—it’s choosing the next wise step.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's 12 a.m. And you get a call from two of your sons. Hey dad, we found ourselves in Mexico, and we don't know how we got here. We also don't have our IDs. What do you do as a parent in this situation? You probably want to scream, but you can't because your wife's sleeping next to you. And this amazing father responds with, tell me more, with clenched teeth. And they say they're driving their way down to Mexico. And if you've ever done that, you kind of realize there's one exit that if you miss it, it's not like you're maybe going to Mexico, like you're gone. You miss one exit and you're in a different country. And that's what happened to these two sons. And they ended up asking the question, how did I get here? Have you ever asked that question? How did I get here? Maybe you picked up your phone to scroll through TikTok and your mind feels like soup three hours a while later. How did I get here? Or maybe you took your eye off of the budget, and then all of a sudden, a couple years later, all your savings are gone. How did I get here? Or did you find yourself in a relationship and you ignored a couple of the yellow flags and they turned into red flags? And you ask, How did I get here? Here's the issue. When we ask that question, we're often surprised. Why are we surprised when we ask that question? Because all it takes is missing one exit. All it takes is a couple of small decisions made over time and over time, and we end up in a relationship we never thought we would, in a financial situation we never thought we would. How did I get here? It's a surprise when we end up there. So there is a better question, I believe, that we can ask today when it comes to finding ourselves in places that we don't want to be. And it's this. If you're taking notes, you can write this down. What direction am I heading? What direction am I heading? Now, maybe for you, uh, you can look at your finances and your relationships and your money and your career. And the question would be: in 12 months from now, if nothing changes, where would you end up? Especially end up in a not so great place. What habit, what decision, what feeling, what mindset, what thought, if nothing changes, it probably won't end up well if you don't change anything. What direction am I heading is a question that I want to answer. The reality is that we all are on a path towards something. We're all setting a course for somewhere. And today I want to give you one word, just one word, that can change the trajectory of your path for good, and that can make sure you don't ask the question, how did I get here? And that one word the Bible says is character. Everyone say character. Oh, that was great. Character is the word we'll be talking about today. I want to give you three ways that you can stay on course with this idea of character. Today, we are in our fourth installment of our series about how life works, where we're talking about Proverbs. Uh, this book is wisdom literature. In other words, it gives you actual advice for the life you're living day to day. And today we're looking at a word study in the book called Character. As we jump in, you're wondering how would you describe character? I would describe character as this biblically, it's who you are becoming through the choices that you repeatedly make. I'll say it one more time. Character is who you are becoming through the choices that you repeatedly make. Proverbs, it's convinced that you are on a course for something. You're always moving in a certain direction. The question is, are you moving in the direction you actually want to go? What direction am I heading in life? And if we're all going to be honest, we kind of all want the same destination, right? Like we all want a healthy singleness, healthy marriage. We want to have a good career. We want to have money at the end when it comes to retirement. Like, we want to have good mental health, we want to be able to have a thriving spirituality to some degree if you're here. We all want similar things. The question is, how do we stay on the path so we don't get distracted? Because you probably know somebody in your life that went on a couple too many detours and they don't know really where they are. And you're like, I don't want to do that, but it's so easy to be distracted. And that's where this word character comes in. Who you are becoming through the choices that you repeatedly make. Proverbs says this the integrity of the upright guides them. In other words, good character, it guides you on this path to the destination of the good life. A Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, says, character is destiny. Character is destiny. Now, if you're here for the first time, uh, man, I'm glad you're here. Like the host said, we have a grift that we'd love to give you. I met a couple of you before service. Uh, and then also, uh, man, uh something you need to know about us is we are a Bible-believing, Bible preaching church. And today we'll be doing this word study on Proverbs. Now, you might be thinking, Jake, if character determines your destiny, according to this philosopher, or Proverbs says it helps guide you on your path. There's a lot of things you're missing, though, like suffering, right? Sometimes other people's choices definitely determine our path. Sometimes injustice determines our path. And this leads me to a very important point about this book called Proverbs. Proverbs is not a scientific literature, it's not trying to get to the perfect solution at all times. What Proverbs is, it's a wise person that looks at trends. What I've seen in general over my life is that if this thing happens, then this response often happens. It's not always true. There's always exceptions to every rule, but what they've found is that character, daily decisions that inform who you are, is one of the biggest determining factors of where you end up. That's what Proverbs is saying. It's not always true, but it's mostly true. And that's why Proverbs is such a good book, because it'll tell you a lot about how life works. So as we jump in, uh, there is one thing I want to edit on your fill-ins. So if you if you have your fill-ins, I want you to write just two words next to something. You see where it says three ways character keeps you on course? You see that? Give me a thumbs up if you see that on your feel-ins. Okay, great. Uh, I want you to write two words next to it. Put if you. So three ways character keeps you on course if you. Make sure to keep the eye. Three ways. Character keeps you on course if you. So I'm gonna give you three ways. It works if you do these three things. Here's the first way that character can keep you on course. You're gonna write this down. Allow God to direct your course. Allow God to direct your course. Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, and all your ways submit to him, and guess what? He will make your paths straight. On the morning of January 28th, 1986, the Challenger Space Shuttle stood on a launch pad in unusually cold Florida weather. In fact, there was ice on the space shuttle. The night before, the engineers, the one who created these space shuttles, the space shuttle, warned that the cold could actually prevent some of the rubber seals from working properly. So a lot of them recommended delaying the launch of the Challenger space shuttle. Now, previous missions went off even though some of these rubber seals didn't really work that well. So they assumed that it might not change the trajectory of this space shuttle. Also, it's kind of been delayed a couple of times at this point. There's millions of people going to be watching at 11 a.m. when we when we enter the program. We've got to keep this thing moving. So they decided, let's do it anyways, and launch this thing. At 11:38 a.m., the Challenger lifted into the sky, and everyone watched. Maybe some of you watched. And 73 seconds later, the shuttle broke apart and all seven members, the astronauts, were killed. The sad part of the situation is that it could have been prevented. If they listened to the engineers, there were multiple other things that were happening, but this was at the core of the issue. And now you might be saying, Jake, I would have never made that decision if I was working for NASA. If I was in management, I would have never, if something was wrong, I would have never done that. I would have stopped the program. But before we judge them too harshly, we do something similar. In fact, Proverbs turns the mirror to us. Because the reality is, we know that there's a designer. Many of us are convinced that there's a God who designed the entire world. And yet we often go against the original design. Why do we do this? Why do we go against our engineer, God? Well, because I have preferences. There's pressure on my life. I have desires. I have beliefs. I have my truth. I have things that I'm convinced are true. And then God's design might say something differently. So just like the management for NASA, we so easily can ignore the person who made the world and made us, who understands relationships more than us, who understands money more than us, who understands integrity and the human soul more than us. But when his wisdom, I might be stepping on some toes here, interrupts our plans. When his wisdom interrupts our preferences, our beliefs, it's a lot easier to ignore the designer and hope it works out because I have my own thoughts about life and how it's designed. We prefer, I don't know about you, but I prefer keeping every dollar. I don't love being generous. And yet God calls me to do it. Of course, I find it's the best way that I've lived so far with my money. It's a lot easier to not be honest with the people that we love. And yet God calls us to community and transparency and authenticity. It's easier to choose immediate comfort than to practice what forms us and keeps us on path. I would say the hardest part, the hardest part of this idea of staying on path through the idea of character, is just trusting that God has a better design for my life than I do. God has a better design for my life than I do. And we start with there, and then we can, of course, use critical thinking as we do all the things in our life. So, what is a way that you can know God's design for your life? Well, there's multiple ways. The Holy Spirit, uh, which we would say is God's helper. It helps us understand what is happening in our lives. And one of the biggest ways is reading the Bible. In fact, Scripture says this Scripture is a word, it is his word, is a lamp to my feet. Isn't that kind of a cool idea? The Bible is like a lamp to my feet. I can imagine someone who's walking on path and the light is guiding their steps so they make sure they're not off and going on a detour. And that's what the Bible is. It's our way to say, okay, are we going in the right path? What is God's design again? And we learn the love of God and the character of God, and we get to emulate that in our own lives, in our own situations. And as we read these ancient texts, we, the Spirit highlights truths we need to hear, exposes lies we've been believing, and guides us towards what's right. That's why we've been uh inviting our entire church to read a proverb a day as we're in this proverb series. The proverbs might take you maybe a minute to read. If you read one in the morning or maybe one at night, if you read one proverb a day, I'm pretty convinced. I've been reading Proverbs a lot this year. Uh Proverb a day keeps the stupid away. At least for me. It's helped a little bit. Not all the stupid, but some stupid. Proverb a day keeps the stupid away. Read a little bit of Proverbs, one a day, and I bet your life will change for the better. So my question for you where are you resisting God's design? Is it a habit? A relationship? A belief? A decision? Character begins when we stop asking God to always bless our direction and start letting Him direct our course. So character keeps you on course if we do that. And then secondly, if you want to write this down, character keeps you on course if you guard against what pulls you off course. If you guard against what pulls you off course. Proverbs 4.23. Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. We uh have a baby boy, he's now four months old, maverick, and uh many changes. I feel like every day. It's beautiful to see. And uh he's changed so much that you know I started seeing on TikTok and Instagram that maybe we could start feeding him some things other than milk, because his entire personality right now is milk and naps and frowning at us or smiling at us. That's like who he is. But I'm like, well, well, what if like what if he could start eating a little bit? And TikTok said it's okay, so it must be okay, right? So uh we texted our pediatrician, and uh our pediatrician may or may not have been in the 9 a.m. service before. So uh she goes to our church, we texted our pediatrician, and we asked, hey, you know, can is it about time? And she said, No, I would probably wait another couple of months. So, what was our natural response to our doctor? How dare you tell me what I can put or not put in my son's mouth? How I want to put rice cereal in my of course I didn't respond like that, right? She knows best. She's been to school doing this, she knows what's best for our son. But it's our son, I get to decide what he has and what he doesn't. The logic really doesn't, it kind of falls apart. And this is the idea here that we guard against what pulls us off course. The Bible talks about God as a great physician, God as a great doctor. It's almost like God knows what we need. He knows what feeds us, what is good for us, and maybe what is not so good for us. So when it says, guard your heart, you know, oftentimes we think of heart as like the place where we decide if we love someone or not, right? Like the emotional uh database for our lives. But when the Old Testament says heart, it actually means the central processing unit of the human life. So Old Testament means where you think, what you believe. So the heart is kind of like the mind, if you can think about it like this. So when it says guard your heart, it says guard the thing that can kind of make big decisions in your life. And I don't know about you, but I don't like this verse oftentimes because the whole idea of guarding, it's kind of like putting boundaries up. I like to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. And just like think about it like guardrails on the side of the road. You know, those cost money, like tax money, to put guardrails on the side of the road. Uh they don't look good. They're ugly, right? Why do we have guardrails? Well, of course, it saved millions of lives in America, guardrails. Because it's easy to go off course. It doesn't take too long to go off course. You've been distracted, and the guardrails help stay on course. So, my question for you is do you have guardrails? Do you have guardrails? Do you have things that guard against your heart so you can stay on the path that you desire to stay on? Especially in the area where it's a little easy to veer off. For you, is that anger? Is it gossip? Is it temptation in some way? Is it money? Is it power? Is it influence? Where is it so easy for you to kind of off the side of the road? What kind of guardrail do you need to put in place for your life so you can stay on the path that you desire to stay on? So, man, time's gone by so fast. What how can character help keep us on course? We first look to God for our direction. We secondly guard against what pulls us off course. And then, third, uh, you can write this down. We practice what keeps us on course. Now, this is not rocket science here. Like the Bible, it's almost like common knowledge, but sometimes the Bible gives us such a simple answer that allows us to reframe how we view our lives. And I like this idea of look to God, guard against what keeps you off course, practice what keeps you on course. In fact, Proverbs says this about practice. The path of the righteous. Righteous is right living. In other words, good character, living right. Uh it's like the morning sun shining ever brighter to the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know what makes them stumble. As I was rehearsing my talk this morning, I had the opportunity to watch the sun rise. And I got to see it be very dark. I looked down, I look back up, and all of a sudden it's lighter and lighter. And I think that's often what good character looks like. You do one small decision. I'm gonna be honest here instead of lying. I'm gonna put my phone down and pray just for a little bit. A small step. I'm gonna budget. I'm gonna compliment my wife every day. One small thing. The issue is that they aren't like sexy, like you don't post that on TikTok, on Instagram. Like, those aren't things. It's like no one sees it. It's characters, oftentimes the hiddenness, right? But you do one small decision and then you do it again and again, and then it kind of gets exciting because it's like the morning sun. Your life gets a little bit brighter. Not always, Proverbs wouldn't say always, but oftentimes you make right decisions over months, over years. Discipline for your own body, discipline for your own mind, and you'll see a brighter path before you. I love what Atomic Habits, it's um a book. The author, James Clear, he says this every action you take is a vote for the person you're becoming. Every action you take is a vote for the person you are becoming. So we practice who we want to become. I want to practice someone who keeps their word. So today, I'm gonna try to keep my word. I want to practice uh being a truth teller. So I'm gonna start telling the truth. I want to practice being a dependable person, a dependable husband, a dependable church member. Well, I'm gonna practice becoming dependable today. And every time you make a small decision, it's like a seed planted in the ground. Every time you tell the truth, every time you keep your word, every time you do the right thing, you cast another vote for the person you are becoming and the destination you are going. And the proverb also has an ending about the other side of things. I mean, I don't know about you. I don't have to choose to do the wrong thing. Have you ever noticed that in your life? Like, you don't often choose doing the wrong thing. Like, it's kind of like oftentimes by default. Like I'll choose to, you know, eat Twinkies at night. If I didn't have to choose anything, that's what, like, by default, I'm gonna eat whatever I want. I'm gonna say whatever I want. I'm gonna think whatever. Like, by default, that's what I'm going to do. And if you do it long enough, not being intentional about the life we're living, you'll end up tripping over yourself, just like the proverb says, it says the wicked, they don't even know what tripped them up. And they end up asking the question, how did I get here? So we practice every day the person we want to become by casting a vote every action that we take. So my question today is what do you most need to practice? For you, is it practicing scripture? Because you want to be someone who reads the Bible. For you, is it practicing prayer? Because you want to be a prayer warrior. For you, is it practicing honesty so you don't let resentment take root in your marriage? Is it for you practicing uh worship so your thoughts are directing towards God instead of negativity? What do you need to practice right now for the person that you desire to become? There's a very famous poem, some would say one of the most famous poems of all time, Robert Frost. He says this two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. There are many beautiful interpretations of this poem, and one interpretation talks about standing at a crossroads, and I believe every single day we get to stand on the crossroads and choose will I take the road less traveled or will I not today? In my character, in my honesty, how I make decisions, how I think. And it is easy to always choose the wrong path, and it is hard to choose the right path. And every day we have an opportunity to stand. Two rows I version of Wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Now I'm gonna invite the band to come up. Here's the beautiful part, because I don't know about you, but uh I've taken a couple detours in my life. I would say I might take a detour every single day. I say something short to my wife that I didn't really want to say. Uh I think a thought that was very negative about someone. I mean, I'm sure for you, you take a little detour every single day, and maybe for you you allowed that to go for a couple of days and weeks and months, and maybe you're at church today and you just feel completely lost. You took a detour, and now you're asking, I feel like I'm in a foreign country. How did I get here? Here's the beautiful part of our faith is that we are not saved by doing the right thing. We are not saved by staying on the right path. It's good, that's probably what you want, so that's why we're talking about it. That's what Proverbs talks about. We are saved by something that God did. God sent his one and only son, and guess what that son said? It's really cool, it's interesting. Jesus was his name, and he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the path. That's what Jesus said. So the path is not doing the right thing at all times. The path is a person. That person is Jesus. So do you find yourself lost today? Do you find yourself taking a detour you never thought you would? Or do you find yourself getting in the same rut over and over and over again? The Bible would say, look to Jesus. He's the one that saves, he's the one that gets us on the right track more than anything else. And that's how we're saved because there's nothing, there's no perfect act that we could do that gets us back on. That's why we have to have a trailblazer. We have to find someone, a pioneer who can get us back home, get us back on track, and that's the person of Jesus. I want to ask if you can stand with me. What direction am I heading? Today, what direction are you heading? There are three ways that character can keep you on course. We look to God, we guard against the things that take us off course, and we practice the things that keep us on course. I never mentioned the two kids and what happened to them in Mexico. Probably should go back to that because you might be wondering about that for the rest of the day. The father at 12 a.m. drives all the way down to Mexico and finds a way to get them back into their home country. And I thought, what a beautiful metaphor that is for our Heavenly Father. Did you know that when you find yourself lost, how did I get here? God will answer your phone call at 12 a.m. Did you know that when you find yourself in Mexico and the phone call wasn't enough, that God will send his one and only son to go to you so we can help you find your way back home. That's the God that we get to worship today. Are you lost? Are you wondering where you're going? God, I look to you. You're where my help comes from. That's the song that we're about to sing. So in these five minutes, maybe you find yourself lost, maybe you find yourself in a little detour, maybe you find yourself on the right path, but you're worried that you'll jump off the path. Would you look to Jesus in this moment? And my hope for you is that God would give you a download over the next five minutes. I actually believe that God could actually give you discernment on the path to take if you're wondering what is the narrow path. I think God will give you discernment on what it looks like to get back on the path if you're lost. So would you be actively listening to what God might want to say to you as we sing the song, God, I look to you. Hey, if you're someone today that's like, yeah, I kind of want to hear the voice of God in my life because of the detour of the lostness, or maybe I'm on path. If that's you, would you just put your hands out like this? This is a posture of receiving over the next five minutes. I'm gonna pray for you over these next five minutes. Lord, I thank you for all of those who are receptive to hearing your voice. Lord, we thank you that you answer our phone at 12 a.m. God, we thank you that you go to us in our lostness and you're sitting right next to us, and you always, always help me up. God, we thank you for always helping me up, just like you did with the disciples, those who are drowning, those who are dead, those who are blind, those who are sick. God, you put a hand down and we, if you grab it, God, you lead us back to the path. So, Lord, I thank you for character. God, I thank you for all the ways that you help us. But Lord, we thank you for you being our Savior. And Lord, I pray for my friends. I pray for those who will never say it, but they feel like they are completely lost. God, I pray for specifically for my friends right now who feel like they're on a detour and then just need a little bit of guidance from you to get back on. And Lord, I pray for those people right now who don't even know your design. Lord, would you give them insight over the next five minutes, a decision, a guardrail, something, God, so they can continue on your path of righteousness as the sun rises and our lives get ever brighter and brighter until the day we reach you in heaven. God, we look to you. You're where our help comes from.