I am direction-impaired. I often tell my children that my brain is actually really powerful in every area except spatial reasoning, because I have never been able to read a map or really visualize how routes come together. This, in contrast to my husband, who can go someplace he’s never been in the dark just once, and then find it again ten years later. My lack of spatial awareness had always been a hindrance, causing me so much stress and anxiety when I had to travel to a new location and flip my printed mapquest directions around in hysterics while driving. It wasn’t pretty. Or safe.

Enter the beautiful invention of the gps.   Now I am able to get where I need to go with the help of that patient, kind voice guiding me along. I’m connected to something bigger and higher than myself which is watching my movements, correcting my mistakes, and helping me to my destination. The other day, I had to make many stops in a row, all in unfamiliar towns, and my dependence on my gps had me thinking of its similarity to another bigger, higher, force that keeps me on track.

God Positioning System

Like my car’s gps, my Gps tracks my tiny presence in the midst of thousands and millions of others. It focuses on me like a laser, and it is committed to getting me safely to my destination. It is higher than me, bigger than me, makes millions of complex calculations about me, and communicates those ideas in a calm, helpful voice.

Like my gps, my Gps sees every mistake I make. Rather than make a big deal about it, it just quietly readjusts my path and lets me know what I should do next. Often times, I am unaware that I have even made a mistake. I just make whatever turn I am directed to make, and before I know it, I am back in business. I wonder how many times in my life, I make really terrible mistakes about which I am largely unaware. How many times does God place me back on the path without me knowing just how far I strayed?

It occurred to me recently how much trust I place in my gps. Because it’s an app on my phone, and therefore unsafe to look at while driving, I mostly listen to instructions from my car’s cup holder, or floor mat. I can go for several miles without hearing the next instruction, and that’s okay. Surprisingly, it doesn’t make me anxious. I know that my ride, like my life’s journey, will involve times of coasting in a relatively straight line. When it’s time for me to do something different, I will be alerted to that fact in time to do something about it.

My gps is the most helpful to me when I can zero in on its voice without distraction. When I’m going through a tricky area, it’s important to turn off the radio, shush the kids, and just listen to what that calm voice is trying to say. Similarly in life, the more I can cancel out distractions, the better I can hear my Gps, and the more uneventful and peaceful my journey will be.

At the end of my journey, I always love hearing that my destination is in view. It’s sometimes still amazing to me that that technology works so well, that I never got lost, and that I peacefully ended up right where I needed to be.

God knows, when I was on my own, it never worked out like that.

© my little epiphanies Kerry Campbell 2014 all rights reserved