In my mind I stood on the dock watching a massive cargo ship approach the harbor, and I couldn't look away.
The vessel moved steadily toward port, but not in the straight line I'd expected. Instead, I watched the harbor pilot make constant, subtle adjustments—a degree or two to port, a slight correction to starboard. The pilot was perpetually responding to wind, current, the ship's momentum, traffic patterns, and a dozen other variables that were never exactly the same twice.
The ship reached the dock not because it traveled in a straight line, but because the pilot made hundreds of micro-adjustments along the way.
That's when it hit me: I'd been thinking about my faith all wrong.
For years, I'd spent twenty-five years as an Air Force weather forecaster, studying patterns, analyzing conditions, understanding that nothing in nature moves in perfect straight lines. Yet somehow I'd convinced myself that spiritual growth should be different—linear, predictable, always forward. Standing on that dock, watching the harbor pilot navigate with such skill precisely because of the constant corrections, I finally understood: the wobble isn't a failure of navigation. It's how navigation works.
The Wobble Factor is the constant, necessary course correction inherent in a life guided by the Holy Spirit.
It's not the absence of direction—it's the presence of dynamic navigation. I had a destination: Christ-likeness, union with the Father. But the journey toward that destination could never be linear because I wasn't traveling through static conditions. I was navigating through changing circumstances, internal weather, cultural currents, relational dynamics, and my own evolving maturity.
I recognized the pattern immediately once I stopped fighting it. One week I'd be gripped by conviction about simplifying my life, ready to sell everything and live radically for Jesus. The next week I'd be paying bills and the radical conviction would feel naive. That was the wobble between zeal and wisdom.
I'd read a passage of Scripture that transformed my understanding of God's character, filled with certainty. Then I'd encounter suffering that seemed incompatible with that understanding, and I'd wrestle with doubt. That was the wobble between certainty and doubt.
I'd commit to a spiritual discipline—daily prayer, consistent Scripture reading. I'd do well for three weeks, then life would get chaotic and the discipline would fall apart. I'd feel like a failure, then restart with adjusted expectations. That was the wobble between conviction and compromise.
The wobble, I began to understand, was not a sign of failure. It was the signature of growth—proof that I was engaged in the dynamic, difficult work of maturing in Christ rather than performing a static role.
I started seeing it everywhere in Scripture. Peter declaring Jesus is the Messiah, then immediately trying to rebuke Him for talking about crucifixion. Promising never to deny Jesus, then doing exactly that before the rooster crowed. Preaching boldly at Pentecost, then later withdrawing from eating with Gentiles when certain Jews arrived. Peter wasn't a failure—he became a pillar of the early church. But his journey wasn't a straight line. It was a wobble.
Even Paul wobbled. Absolutely certain of his gospel, yet becoming "all things to all people." Wrestling with his thorn in the flesh, pleading with God to remove it, then learning to accept it as sufficient grace. Experiencing profound spiritual revelations while admitting he didn't fully understand but pressed on anyway.
David—called "a man after God's own heart"—lived one extended wobble: deep devotion alternating with massive moral failures, profound trust alongside seasons of fear, genuine repentance followed by problematic patterns reasserting themselves. The Psalms captured it perfectly, sometimes swinging from despair to confidence in a single passage.
If the wobble was so clearly the pattern throughout Scripture, why had I missed it for so long? Because I'd been reading backward, knowing how the stories turned out. I'd emphasized resolution over process, moralized the failures, and forgotten that these biblical characters were navigating in real time without knowing their endings—just like me.
Here's what changed everything: The wobble isn't evidence that something's wrong with my discipleship. It's evidence that discipleship is actually happening.
Growth requires adjustment. Formation requires tension. Navigation requires course correction. If my faith looked exactly the same as it did five years ago, that wouldn't be stability—it would be stagnation.
The wobble means I'm alive, engaged, responding to the Spirit's leading even into uncomfortable territory. It's the signature of growth—proof that I'm becoming, not just being.
The question isn't how to eliminate the wobble. The question is: How do I navigate it well?