Whose Guidebook Is In Your Pocket?

This blog is based on a sermon by Pastor Teresa Howell-Smith on March 15, 2026

We live in a world that’s obsessed with “the way.”

Not necessarily the way of Christ, but the way things ought to be done. In the movie The Way, we see a group of pilgrims bickering over their guidebooks. The Danes want the party while the Americans have an opinion on every historical marker. We do this in life too. We carry around invisible guidebooks written by our parents, our bosses, or a culture that demands that we perform.

We can see examples of this in The Way  with the man who uses a tablecloth as a bull fighting cape because his father forced him to be a lawyer. But history gives us even more sobering examples. I was watching a movie recently about the life of Vivien Thomas. He was a man with the soul of a healer. He saved every penny to become a doctor only to have the Great Depression wipe out his savings. Systemic racism barred his entry into medical school.

Viven Thomas worked as a janitor, but his soul knew he was a surgeon. He spent his life working in the shadows of an actual surgeon, eventually developing the very procedures that would save “blue babies.” He stayed true to his mission, even when the world refused to give him a guidebook.

The Book of Mark poses an ultimate question: What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and the approval of others if it costs them their soul?

Psalm 32 warns: Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. The Psalm is making the plea for us to unfetter ourselves. In our modern life, the bit is often the reactivity. We get stuck in arguments in a comments section, or a tense moment at work, and suddenly, our entire afternoon is gone. We let a fox, a critic, or a petty grievance hold the remote control to our peace. We lose our way because we are too busy bickering. Every minute spent barking at a fox is a minute lost from the mission.

In Luke 13, the Pharisees try to bait Jessu with fear: “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” But Jesus remains remarkably calm. He calls Herod a fox and an insignificant pretender and stays true to the path. He doesn’t subscribe to the argument, He stays true to the path because He knows He is. But notice that He isn’t cold or detached or stoic. As a first century Jew, Jerusalem was the center of His world. He doesn’t reject the city, He grieves for it: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” This is the mission: to be so rooted in our love for our community that foxes can’t scare us from the roads.

A member of our church recently told me that St. Patrick's day was a big day for his family. His wife would cook St. Patrick’s Day dinner for the folks at a shelter. And every year, she would go shopping the day before and spared no expense. He would ask her, “Why are you spending all this money?” She responded that she refused to spare any expense. She wanted the people in that shelter to be seen, to know that they were important. His wife has been gone for years, but her mission lives on in him. Now, he cooks at the shelter, refusing to cut corners. He followed a guidebook of compassion. He didn’t let the foxes of grief or cynicism pull him off of the road.

How often do we find our way back when we’re being pulled off course? The Psalm says that when we unfetter ourselves, that God will show us the way we should walk.

In the movie The Way, the transformation happens when the pilgrims start sharing their stories. As they walk, the labels fall away. They see the roads each other has traveled – the blisters and the heart aches. Like Vivien Thomas in the lab or a volunteer at a shelter, we find our soul when we share our truth.

Vulnerability is the antidote to the argument. When we share our blisters, we find that we aren’t walking alone. Without a clear mission rooted in love, we are just mules being pulled by notifications and other people’s expectations.

Today, I invite you and I to ask ourselves this question: Whose guidebook is in your pocket? The one the world gave you or the one that God wrote on your heart? Are you being pulled sideways by a fox that doesn't matter? Are you ready to let go of the bridle? Stop trying to gain the world’s approval. Start trying to find the soul that God gave you. May your life be a place where other people feel seen. Maybe you’ll walk the path that God has set ablaze for you with a calm and steady heart.

Hallelujah and amen.