I’ve always hated GPS units. Those little gadgets that tell you what to do and when to do it. My husband has tried to convince me that they are reliable and accurate and will keep me on track, but I don’t buy it. Every time I go to an unfamiliar place I diligently print my Google map with detailed instructions and travel to my destination with a profound sense of peace.
I am an extremely disoriented person and I need to have control. I want to know the route, the name of every street, where exactly will I turn and if it will be right or left long before I have to do it. The fact is, GPS receivers don’t work that way! They sometimes will tell you to exit or turn at the very last minute!
Yesterday something went wrong. I had a doctor’s appointment but hadn’t been there in almost a year, and remembered just a few streets of the route. I faithfully printed my google map, but for some reason it gave me a different route and not having more time to change directions, I decided to give the GPS a try.
My way there was almost perfect, except when the GPS told me at the very last moment that I had to make a right and I was in the middle lane! That really freaked me out! Then, the uncertainty of driving on unfamiliar streets, not knowing if I would end up in the right place or not, made me very nervous.
My way back home wasn’t better. The GPS decided to take a different route back, which put me in alert mode again. I was supposed to make a left, but I remembered I had made a left on my way there, so I needed to make a right…I decided the GPS was wrong and started driving back the way I remembered it, but backwards, trying to rearrange the route in a way that would make me feel safe. Big mistake! After just one street, I had no idea which way to go! Immediately the GPS ascertained my new location and chose another route that ended up leading me through a maze of empty, bad neighborhood streets, my heart pounding, praying to the Lord to take me home safely…
The fact is that the Christian life is pretty much so. We like to have control. We want to know what is ahead in order to trust God. Yet, our Lord will guide us through life one step at a time, without showing us the whole map, never knowing His entire plan. He did it with Abraham when He asked him to leave his family and head to a land he had never seen. He did it with Joseph when his evil brothers sold him as slave. He did it with David when the King he loved and served persecuted him.
We ought to feel honored because God guides us in the same way He guided those giants of the faith, and ought to never try to adjust the route like I did. Even if we think we have a better route or we are looking for something more suitable to us, He knows better than us where we are in life and what we need in order to mature, to grow in knowledge, wisdom and holiness.
That little gadget taught me something. What matters is not what I know about the road. What matters is that in every GPS there is a wealth of knowledge, a well defined route, a plan so perfectly designed that takes millions of people to places everywhere safely. I have come to understand that we don’t have to have all the facts. We don’t necessarily have to know what is ahead, and it would be a big mistake to adjust the route God has chosen for us. We just have to trust in His infinite, incredibly wise plan for our lives and let Him do His job at guiding us safely home.
The post Finding Our Way Home by Dinora Garza appeared first on Christ Centered Home Magazine.
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