The gravel track down the street has been my good friend during the quarantine. My days are much happier and productive if I start with a quick walk to and from the track and a few laps in the morning air.

When I'm running on the track, keeping my head up and my eyes looking out, I see lines of lighter gravel clearly marking several jogging lanes. Although these lines are smeared and messy—it would be tough to find a definitive start and end to a given line—the division between lanes is surely visible.

But when I looked down directly below me in a section of the line as small as a square foot, the lighter stones and darker stones blend together without much differentiation. It just looks like random light grey gravel. With this small of a snapshot I can't tell this is part of a line.

So it is with long-range goals, plans and mission. We have dreams and plans on a one-year, five-year, ten-year (or more) basis. We know—maybe not with precise clarity—what those dreams and plans look like. We know what we want….in the future.

Trying to achieve those long-term goals with my actions TODAY is where the "shoes hit the gravel."  We live hour by hour, day by day. We make decisions and choose actions today that (might) seem irrelevant and meaningless, but in the end will most certainly determine our long-range outcomes.

It's all about perspective. Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Looking down at the ground gives me crappy vision. I need to keep my head up and my eyes looking out for the best perspective and best chance for reaching my goals.