Maps, Google Maps, and Navigations

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A few weeks ago, I was traveling to Alabama and made a pitstop at a gas station. I was standing inline and this kid about 10 years old looked at his Mom and pointed and asked what’s is that? I looked to see what he was pointing at and it was a paper map. His mom looked at him laughed and told him what it was. Still puzzled, he then looked at her said don’t people know it’s on the phone and in the car? At this point his mom and I laughed out loud.  She looked at me and said what these kids don’t know these days. As I got back in the car, I started to think about that kid and even my own kids. They would not know how to use a map. This brought me to a thought, and that is sometimes we turn down the wrong road and we live in a time where we depend on either google or our navigation in the car to make sure we stay on the correct road and to give us the right directions to get to our destination.  
 
When I was in college, my friends and I thought it would be a good Idea to head north to Virginia for some reason.  We pulled out our paper map and laid it out on the table. I took a pen and drew our route on the paper map. Since we had the destination laid out, we were good to go. We threw some clothes in a bag, toss it in the back of the car and off we went. Things were going well until we pulled into South Carolina. The map showed us the roads but what the map didn’t show us was there was construction and the road we had planned on going down was closed. There were no detour signs to help us out. We pulled over at a gas station, pulled out our map and tried to find a new route and so we did, well which we thought we did. As we drove down this road and made turns we were so lost that not even the roads we were on were on the map. Eventually, we found a farmer who sitting on the side of the road with his tractor. I said sir we are lost and have no idea where we are at, can you help us?  As my buddy was saying “just as long as he doesn’t kill us first” in the background under his breath.  The farmer laughed and said boys yall are way off the path you need to be. He walked over to his truck and said follow me and I will get you back to the main road. We followed him and finally we were back on the right road. We finally made it to where we were headed. 
 
I thought how much easier it would have been if we had navigation or google maps in the car at that time. It would have told us what road to turn on how to get us around the construction and I’m sure we wouldn’t drove 50 miles out of the way and ended up on some dirt road.  Thank goodness for navigation and google maps today, however I still see people today that don’t listen to it and try to go their own direction and end up on the wrong road. Isn’t this like life? We have a navigator that we should be following and listening to, but we don’t. We are hearing - turn here, don’t go that way, make a U turn. But we still don’t listen. We need to remember that God knows the direction to go, but we have to listen. He has the map of our life but we think we do and we think we know the best direction. 
 
Look at Palam 25:4-5 “Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths, 5 Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” When we trust and ask he will show us. Even though it might the road we would have choose but remember he knows best. 
 
Today, if your struggling about what direction you need to be going, remember all we have to do is ask but remember we have to trust. Just as I had to trust that farmer to get us to the main road, we have to trust God will do the same thing.