The basic premise behind this work is that there is a path that everyone is on and it leads to a definite end. He writes in order to wake up the reader to a principle that is at work whether or not we are aware of it. For example: you see something you want to have but you can't afford to pay cash for it so you charge it. Then you see something else you just have to have and charge that, etc. Then you take out a loan to get rid of the credit card debt. Then, since your cards are paid off, you start buying again. Soon you get to the point that you can not make the payments and you declare bankruptcy. You wonder how you got to this point, though it is obvious to those around you. Your habit of spending more than you bring home in your paycheck, because you "just have to have it" put you on a path to a predictable and inevitable end. This does not mean that at some point, you could not have changed direction and thereby changed the outcome, there are indeed those points. There is also the last opportunity, after which there is no chance to change direction and you end up at the inevitable outcome.
The author lays out for consideration some determining factors at work, two of which are:
1) Direction-not intention determines destination.
2) Attention determines direction.
An example of the first is: you want to go to a restaurant for dinner. You start off going the right way, but you make a wrong turn and end up going in the opposite direction. You intended to go a different way, but that intent does not matter, because you are no longer headed in that direction. You need to change your direction in order to get to your desired destination.
An example of the second is: again using a driving metaphor, you are driving along and there is an accident in the far lane. You turn your head to look and your car begins to drift in that direction.
Andy Stanley gives suggestions to keep on a right path, or change direction if you are on a wrong path. Listen to others, especially those who have arrived at the destination where you want to end up-"Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed."-Proverbs 15:22. Submit to that counsel. Be humble enough to acknowledge that you do not know everything. Acknowledge God in all of your ways, and He will make your ways straight-proverbs 3:8.
By the end many of my doubts were quelled and I can understand and mostly agree with the "Principle of the Path". This would be a good book to give a student leaving for college.
