As I help people, leaders, and systems develop structures, I often begin by assessing where they became stuck. Or failed to start. Or could possibly be misaligned.
What has taken them off course?
Why are they struggling to move forward?
Why have they been unable to become what they believe they were created or called to be?
Do they know the destination they are trying to reach?
More often than not, the problem did not begin with one enormous failure. Or one obvious off course decision.
It began with one degree of compromise.
A responsibility was overlooked.
A harmful behavior was excused.
Accountability was avoided.
A value was not held.
Someone’s title, history, status, or relationships made confronting the problem uncomfortable.
Something known to be important was deferred because dealing with it would have required courage, conflict, or change.
Comfort over conviction.
Or sometimes culture over character.
Those tiny little thoughts, feelings, desires and decisions seem small in the moment.
Maybe even harmless.
But one degree off, continued long enough, can take a person, marriage, family, organization, or spiritual community miles from its intended destination.
Miles.
Just visualize what that looks like when you are standing in the middle of a circle. The intended target in your life is due north… you make one degree of a variation in your thought life and that one degree when followed for any amount of time gets you further and further away from where you desired to go. Where you even believe God wants you to be.
Where you have asked Him to take you.
As I have recognized this in the people and systems I help, it has caused me to pay closer attention to my own “one degree off.”
This part of what I do is not fun 😂.
God always teaches me as He gives me strength and wisdom to guide others.
So here’s what I learned as He was showing me this principle of “one degree off”.
The pride I masqueraded as discernment.
The gossip I masqueraded as concern.
The judgment I masqueraded as wisdom.
The compromise of values I masqueraded as grace.
The bitterness I masqueraded as protection.
Sometimes compromise is obvious.
But sometimes it’s so neatly tucked into my protective strategies I don’t even see it but 😁😬 thanks to the Holy Spirit….
I can feel it immediately.
The statement I should not have repeated.
The judgment I entertained.
The resentment I rehearsed.
The forgiveness I withheld because the person was not sorry.
The lie that I believed because the truth hurt.
The behavior I knew was wrong but it was “keeping me safe” like silence, avoidance or compliance.
The complaining and criticism I freely expressed.
All of this can seem harmless in the moment…
But sometimes being one degree off looks good.
Sometimes it even feels “right”.
Sometimes it looks like devotion to family…until love becomes control, closeness becomes entitlement, and people are no longer free to live the lives God gave them.
Sometimes it looks like giving someone grace…until avoiding accountability allows their harmful or irresponsible behavior to continue affecting everyone around them.
Sometimes it looks like honoring authority…until we realize we never asked whether God was actually leading us to obey that particular authority in that particular situation.
Sometimes it looks like excellence, protection, patience, loyalty, service, unity, submission, or discernment.
These things may be good. Some may even have begun as something God ordained.
But a good thing can become one degree off when we look to it to do only what God can.
Love becomes control.
Protection becomes hypervigilance.
Excellence becomes intolerance.
Grace becomes enabling.
Honor becomes silence.
Submission becomes self-abandonment.
Unity becomes conformity.
Discernment becomes judgment.
Service becomes overfunctioning.
A boundary becomes punishment.
I literally an out a check mark by all of that 😬
The original desire may have been pure, but somewhere along the way, it became an idol, an adaptation, or a protective measure.
That is what makes this kind of compromise so difficult to recognize. The one degree off kind of compromise.
The language of it can remain spiritual long after its fruit has become dysfunctional.
“I’m just processing,” when I am gossiping.
“I’m giving grace,” when I am avoiding necessary accountability.
“I’m protecting my peace,” when I am withholding forgiveness.
“I’m being discerning,” when judgment has taken root.
“I’m honoring authority,” when I have surrendered the discernment God asked me to exercise.
“I’m protecting myself,” when I am trusting my adaptations more than I trust God.
We can justify almost anything when we believe we deserve to protect ourselves.
That right there hit me so hard.
I justify being one degree off because I believe I have the right to think, feel and do what protects me.
Me.
Did I say that right.
I believe being one degree off is ok because I am responsible to protect me.
Or if I want to get really noble…
I am justified to be one degree off when I’m protecting others and when I’m protecting “Gods truth”.
Which is so interesting because you are not Gods protector.
He is yours.
You are not anyone’s protector if you are one degree off.
You now are moving away from Gods best even if your intentions were good.
Once we have named something wisdom, grace, loyalty, discernment, or protection, we may stop allowing the Holy Spirit to examine it.
That is the danger of the “one-degree drift” as I call it in coaching and consulting.
And clearly my own life according to the Holy Spirit. 😁
A passing thought becomes an agreement.
An agreement becomes a rehearsed narrative.
The narrative becomes resentment.
Resentment becomes a lens.
The lens changes how we see, speak, respond, and live.
What once seemed fleeting takes root in the soul.
Eventually, we may find ourselves miles from where we intended to go, wondering why we no longer hear God as clearly, feel His presence as sweetly, obey His voice as readily, or remain in His Word as consistently.
The enemy does not always tempt us with an obvious departure from truth.
Sometimes he simply introduces…or reinforces…a one-degree deviation and allows “nature to take its course.”
Ugh.
The thought of it now makes me sad but not in a self destructive way.
In a Holy sorrow way.
So what is the answer?
Rigidity?
No.
The answer is intentionality.
It is not anxious self monitoring, fear, perfectionism, or trying to control every thought so we never make a mistake.
That would simply become another adaptation…control disguised as holiness.
That was my specialty by the way. 🫣
God showed me something that I believed I already knew. And maybe I did.
But I was one degree off.
The answer is a steady gaze.
It is beholding Him and remaining under the gaze of His eyes.
It is keeping our eyes on the One who is not merely giving us directions but is the direction. ❤️
It is allowing the Holy Spirit to be our compass and the Word of God to be our road map.
It is remaining responsive enough to receive correction while the deviation is still only one degree.
It is allowing God to ask…
Is this love, or is it control?
Is this grace, or is it avoidance?
Is this discernment, or is it judgment?
Is this protection, or is it fear?
Is this submission to You or compliance with another person?
Is this a boundary, or am I trying to punish someone?
Is this merely something good…or is it God?
An unsteady gaze brings you one degree off.
The danger is not that we will occasionally become one degree misaligned.
The danger is that we will justify the misalignment and resist correction.
God’s conviction is not condemnation. It is course correction.
It is His kindness catching us before a thought becomes an agreement, an agreement becomes a pattern, and a pattern begins determining our destination.
Sometimes faithfulness means forgiving.
Sometimes it means confronting.
Sometimes it means extending grace.
Sometimes it means holding someone accountable.
Sometimes it means honoring authority.
Sometimes it means respectfully refusing to follow where that authority is leading.
Sometimes obedience means releasing control over the people we love and allowing them to live freely before God.
We cannot navigate by what merely appears good.
We cannot allow our pain, fear, adaptations, desires, or even our own reasoning to become our compass.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
That is Proverbs 3:5-6
An amazing part of the Divine road map God has given us.
Keep your eyes on Him.
Let the Holy Spirit be your compass.
Let the Word of God be your road map.
Let conviction correct your course.
Let surrender keep your heart responsive.
Because leaning on your own understanding may leave you only one degree off today…
but miles from your intended destination tomorrow.
And I saved this for last…
If you read through this whole post thinking about how “others” have been one degree off… in marriage, in family, in ministry, in the world…. If they had been the focus in your heart as you have read this…
You are one degree off.