It looks like my “getting lost” days are over. I received a wonderful (at least I think it may be wonderful) gift a couple of weeks ago. I opened the box and found a GPS. You know, a global positioning system. I read the instructions and found that it “provides reliable positioning, navigation, and timing services to worldwide users on a continuous basis in all weather, day and night, anywhere on or near the Earth.”
Hmmm “neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet of night”….Move over, postal carriers, I am back on the road!
After being lost in our boat in the fog on Lake Superior, we invested in a Loran to keep us from running aground and away from the rocks…in fact we even had a device that was supposed to find fish. Note the word “supposed.” So you may better understand my skepticism of an electronic device that would keep me from getting lost.
I am grateful, really…but… Well, I am not used to having someone right there, telling me how to drive. I thought those days were over. Besides, when I think I am making a good decision on my own I all of a sudden hear… “Recalculating, recalculating….”
And also, I may be having a difficult time trusting the device all of the time. After all, if it feels like I am going south, surely I must be going south and the “turn around” command really annoys me. I have found that shutting the thing off only gets me into more trouble, however. So I am on a new adventure.
Our life adventure is much the same. We tend to think that we can be always in control and know just where we are going and how we are going to get there and suddenly we find our northerly route has plunked us right smack into Iowa. We have lost our way at times, and have had to turn around. We have gone slowly, unsure of the route we have chosen.
The thing is, all along we have had the best of GPS that can be found, only it is spelled GOD. Whatever path we may be on in life, when we come to crossroads of indecision, when we are in situations that we have never been in before we always have GOD there to guide and direct us. The thing is, like the GPS, we have to tune in to it… we have to listen…and we have to trust. Unlike the GPS, GOD is always accurate, God always knows the right direction for our life.
How much better for us if we just put in our coordinates with prayer and trust in the One who will guide us and if we listen , GOD will bring us to the end of our journey and onto the highway a new future.
At least that is something to think about.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections This week our contributor is Pastor EvaLyn Carlson of the First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ.
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