In honor of Bryan's birthday coming up in a few days, I thought I'd share a lesson we learned together several years ago when we were traveling to Pennsylvania to learn how to build log homes.
WHO'S YOUR MAP
It would’ve been different if it weren’t nearly midnight,
if I’d ever been in Baltimore before, or if we didn’t have a two-hour drive
before us. But it was, and we hadn’t,
and we did. So when my husband, Bryan,
and I climbed into our Hertz rent-a-car we knew it wouldn’t be easy to get to
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania over 140 miles away.
But when I unfolded the Hertz map, I realized it
would be even harder than I’d thought.
“This only shows downtown Baltimore and Washington DC.” I turned to Bryan and frowned.
“Well, um,”
Bryan cleared his throat, “looks like we’ll just have to figure it out on our
own.”
“You’re kidding,” I muttered.
He gave me a sheepish grin, started the car, and
pulled from the parking space. We hadn’t
driven ten feet when a strange voice spoke from a box attached to the
dash. “What is your destination?” it
asked.
“What’s that?” I pointed.
“I think it’s an onboard navigator,” Bryan
answered. “Punch in where we’re going
and see what happens.”
After a minute of pushing buttons, a map appeared on
the screen, and a smooth woman’s voice emanated from the box. “Approaching right turn,” it said.
“Look!” I exclaimed.
“It’s showing us where to go.”
Bryan made the right turn and continued to follow the
box’s instructions until we reached a freeway and headed north. “I love this machine!” I announced.
But after about 45 minutes, I wasn’t so sure. The problem was, the machine only showed us
up to the next turn. It didn’t reveal
the entire map, and I was starting to have my doubts.
“Are we sure that box knows where we’re going?” Bryan
said.
“How do we know it’s giving us the right directions?”
I responded.
“That doesn’t seem like the right turn, does it?”
Bryan grumbled ten minutes later.
“Why are we going west when Lewisburg’s supposed to
be north?” I answered.
Finally, Bryan had enough. “I’m pulling over and getting a map,” he
announced.
“Shouldn’t we trust the machine?” I said, but not
very convincingly.
Soon, he spotted a gas station and pulled off the
road. Ten minutes later he returned with
map in hand. “This is the right road,”
he murmured in a very small voice.
“Trust the machine,” I winked.
Bryan grinned.
For the rest of the trip, we decided to “trust the
machine,” and sure enough, before long, we pulled up, safe and sound, in front
of our hotel in Lewisburg.
Since then, I’ve realized that our Lewisburg trip is
much like life. Sometimes I’m tempted to
navigate by poor maps of worldly wisdom.
Or, I think I can “wing it” by doing what seems easiest at the
moment. But those methods will only get
me lost. Christ offers me another
way. When I gave my life to him, he
became my onboard navigator, saying to me “This is the way, walk in it.”
(Isaiah 31:21)
The problem is trusting. Sometimes it’s hard when God is telling me to
be kind to someone who’s hurt me, to forgive, to go the extra mile when there
seems to be no benefit for me. But
what’s the hardest of all is to trust when I don’t see the whole map in front
of me. I want to see all the turns and
curves of my life right now. But that’s
not how God works. Instead, he asks me
to trust him one step at a time. And
like Bryan, sometimes I feel like pulling off the road to check if he’s leading
me the right way. But, then I tell
myself to “trust the machine” – trust the One who knows more than any map I
could ever buy. He knows where I am,
where I’ve been, where I’m going.
And so I’m learning to believe and obey God for the
“now” – to do the right thing, to do what he asks today, in this moment, and
trust that He will be with me in the turns and curves to come. I remind myself that I have an onboard
navigator; God knows the whole map of my life.
All I need to do is trust and obey.
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