There's a moment every sailor dreads: the realization that you're not where you thought you were.
I've had those moments as a disciple of Christ. My prayer life goes dry for months, but I'd convinced myself it was just a season. My Bible sat unopened on the nightstand, but I told myself I was too busy. My small group had become a place where I performed rather than connected, but I rationalized that I was protecting others from my mess. I was in constant motion—working, parenting, managing responsibilities—but somewhere deep down, I knew the truth I didn't want to face.
I wasn't navigating anymore. I was drifting.
The difference between wobble and drift is the difference between navigation and being lost at sea. Not all movement is navigation. You can be in constant, exhausting motion and still be drifting—carried by forces you're not engaging with, moving without steering, mistaking activity for progress.
I'd spent years understanding navigation in my Air Force career. I knew it required three essential elements: knowing where you are, knowing where you're going, and having fixed points for reference. Without these, you're not navigating. You're just hoping.
When a harbor pilot boards a ship, they navigate by constant feedback and adjustment. They make a course change and observe how the ship responds. They feel the current pushing and compensate. They see traffic ahead and modify the route. Every adjustment serves the goal of safely reaching the dock. This is active, engaged, responsive navigation. It looks like wobble from the outside, but it's not random movement.
That's what spiritual navigation should look like.
The wobble is what happens when you're actively engaged in steering your life toward Christ while responding to real conditions. When you're convicted about generosity but also have actual responsibilities, the wobble happens as you navigate between conviction and reality. You make a decision to increase your giving, then adjust when you discover you need an emergency fund to avoid anxiety that hinders your spiritual life. Each adjustment isn't abandoning the conviction—it's steering toward it through actual conditions.
But drift? Drift is something else entirely.
I began to recognize the difference somewhere along my discipleship journey. Wobble is characterized by awareness, intention, engagement, reference to fixed points, and course correction. I had none of these. I wasn't aware of where I actually was—I was telling myself comforting lies. I had no clear direction beyond surviving the week. I was passive, reactive, carried by whatever current was strongest. My reference points had disappeared—Scripture, community, prayer, all eroded. And when I noticed I was off course, I justified it rather than correcting it.
The warning signs had been there for months. I'd stopped being honest with myself, with God, with others. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seriously engaged with Scripture or experienced meaningful community. I'd isolated myself from people who would ask hard questions. I was numb, going through motions but feeling nothing—not conviction, not doubt, not struggle. Just numbness.
If someone had asked me what I was aiming for in my spiritual life, I'd have had no clear answer.
What changed? Awareness became the first step back to navigation. The fact that I could see the drift meant I wasn't completely lost. I could still find my fixed points and start steering again.
I had to distinguish between what doesn't move and what must adapt. Fixed points—the character of God, the gospel, my identity as His child, the authority of Scripture—these remained constant. Fluid practices—my specific prayer rhythms, my approach to spiritual disciplines, how I structured my time—these needed to change with my circumstances.
The goal isn't to stop the wobble. The goal is to wobble well—to navigate with awareness, intention, and reference to fixed points. To stay engaged in steering rather than passively drifting. To make course corrections when needed rather than pretending you're still on track.
The harbor pilot doesn't apologize for constant course corrections. They don't see them as failures. They're the job. They're what makes safe passage possible.
I have to continually be aware of my need to stop drifting and start navigating again. Not perfectly. Not in a straight line. But engaged, aware, steering toward something true. The wobble returns, and I welcome it—because the wobble means I am alive again, responding to the Spirit's leading, making adjustments that served my forward movement.
The wobble isn't a bug in discipleship. It's how discipleship actually works.
