Johnny Depp and a Few Degrees Off Course
What do you want in life? Fame? Power? Money? Beauty? There are few who check off these boxes with more gusto than Johnny Depp. One of the most recognizable people on the planet, Depp is one of only four men to be twice named the Sexiest Man Alive. His net worth peaked at over $800 million.
Who wouldn’t want to be Johnny Depp?
And yet, all it takes is a quick scroll through the news to see that this man’s life inspires more pity than envy. Johnny Depp’s ex-wife, Amber Heard has accused Depp of domestic abuse. Depp has fought back with a lawsuit charging Heard with abuse. Whatever the truth of who initiated the violence, one can’t help but be sad for Heard and Depp. Physical endangerment, drug and alcohol abuse, and violent, vulgar words marked their toxic and tumultuous relationship.
It has also been reported that Depp managed to blow through $650 million of his $800+ million net worth. One can’t help but scratch your head and wonder how spending that kind of money in a decade is even possible. One gets the sense that Depp has become the living version of his big screen caricature: intoxicated and unmoored.
Who would want to be Johnny Depp?
I think of my daughter and her friends in the final months of their senior year. These are days where they are peppered with questions about their future, “What are your plans?” “Where are you going?” “What are you going to do next?”
Setting one’s sights even slightly off course can result in significant error down the path. Air navigation experts refer to the one in sixty rule, which means that for every degree a plane veers off course initially it will miss its target destination by one mile for every sixty miles flown. The results can be fatal.
In 1979 a passenger jet with 257 tourists departed New Zealand for a roundtrip sightseeing flight to Antarctica. Unbeknownst to the pilots, there was a two-degree error in the flight coordinates. As the pilots approached Antarctica, the aircraft was 28 miles further east than where the pilots believed it to be. The plane descended to a lower altitude to give the tourists a better look of the foreign terrain. Making their maiden voyage to Antarctica, the pilots weren’t aware that they were headed straight toward Mount Erebus, a 12,000-foot-tall volcano. The plane slammed into the side of the volcano, killing all 257 on board.
How do we make big-life decisions? What factors do we throw on the positive and negative sides of the ledgers as we determine what job to take or college to attend? When speaking of God’s will, the Bible directs us to consider elements that frustrate the way we think about decision-making. Is this a decision that promotes justice and mercy (Mic. 6:6)? Is this a decision that will help the fruit of the Spirit to flourish in my life and others (Gal. 5:22-23)? How does this decision build up the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:7)? Is this decision reflective of Christ’s wisdom (1 Cor. 1:17)?
As seniors prepare to graduate, they’re asking themselves whether they should jump into the work force, travel, attend a trade school, a junior college, or a four-year college. Those are important questions. But they are dwarfed by the decisions seniors will make regarding whether they will attend church and how they will serve and participate in that community, what friends they will invest in, and what spiritual, emotional, and intellectual habits they will establish.
A small compromise here for the sake of a little more money, a justification there for a little more popularity, a concession here for that romantic interest: degree by degree we drift.
Our only hope is a heart set on the destination of Christ with daily dependence on the Spirit of God.
Solomon begins the book of Proverbs by urging the hearer to seek after wisdom by the way of wisdom.
To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Prov. 1:2-7)
Solomon was Johnny Depp long before Johnny Depp. Sitting on the other side of the devastation of a heart pulled off course degree by degree by the power of romance, money, and fame, Solomon urges the reader to heed his warning. “Check your bearings!” Solomon pleads with us. In the end, only the author of Wisdom will satisfy. He is the only destination worth pursuing and his path is the only path that will spare us the destruction of the world.
Almost a thousand years after Solomon, Wisdom himself came and warned about just how narrow that path is, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:13-14).
The way may be narrow, but it is the only path that will satisfy. The good news is that it is never too late to take Wisdom’s path.
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