Getting Un-Lost
GPS has been around long enough now that most of us have at least one GPS-gone-wrong story. Me? I collect them like some folks collect coins, comic books or Christmas decorations.
Most recently I was traveling back from Louisiana in my relatively new pickup when my disembodied navigator kept suggesting a route that, to me, didn’t make sense. I stayed on Highway 7 on the trip down, I thought. Why wouldn’t I take it all the way back? I ignored the GPS once, but it soon was trying to get me back on its preferred highway. I decided it knew something I didn’t know. Maybe there was a wreck on Highway 7 or it was unusually congested on Monday nights. So, I played along, hoping I didn’t end up in Pine Bluff.
Thankfully, it was taking me back to Hot Springs. It just wasn’t taking me home. Turns out, I was using the truck’s GPS not my phone’s GPS, and “home” for the truck was the Ford dealership. I rarely use GPS to get home, so I’d never noticed that I needed to let my truck know it had undergone an ownership and address change.
This misadventure was minor. I went through Malvern instead of Arkadelphia. I drove a little further and it took five or ten minutes longer than the better route, but the roads weren’t as curvy. Overall, no big deal.
Not like the time my wife and I made a trip-of-a-lifetime to Italy. After a few days in Florence, I picked up the rental car that we would drive to Rome. Along the way, we planned to spend a few nights in Saturnia, a little town in the region of Tuscany, because we wanted to go to a small river we’d read about that was fed by hot springs.
They aren’t Hot-Springs-Arkansas hot but they are plenty warm. There’s a place where the water cascades into pools that become natural hot tubs. You can hike about a hundred yards and sit in the thermal water with thirty or forty Italians. The downside? You and your swimsuits smell like sulfur for about a week.
But first we had to get there, and the fine folks at the rental car company looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language when I asked about the GPS we’d reserved with our car. It didn’t help that I actually was speaking a foreign language. Bottom line: No GPS.
So, off we went with a few printed directions (my wife is a planner), and we were fine as long as we were on the main highway, but we weren’t sure exactly where to exit or how to navigate the final miles to our remote hotel location. In desperation, I eventually took a random exit, pulled into a gas station, and asked for directions. The clerk and customers, oddly enough, only spoke Italian. What were the odds? And, of course, I only speak Redneck English.
I tried to speak louder and slower, but for some reason that didn’t assist in the translation. With enough pictures on napkins and goofy signs with my hands, we worked it out and left with a plan that, by the grace of God alone, actually got us where we were trying to go.
There were a few more misadventures before we returned the car in Rome—we drove around one city block about six times looking for a street sign, for instance—but we survived and had a great time despite the frustrations we experience along the way.
Maybe you know where I’m going with this…
Jesus has a few things to say about being lost and His role in getting us home, and it’s helpful to lean into His words when we look around and realize we don’t know where we are or how to get where we need to go.
The thing is, even when we’ve been saved by grace and know we’re going to our heavenly home when we leave this world, we don’t always take the right paths. We take detours because we’re selfish, prideful, or just plain stubborn. Or we listen to a deceptive GPS that tells us lies and takes us far away from God’s will.
Maybe it’s a big detour, like a relapse into an addiction, or maybe it’s seemingly small, like a consistent lack of patience with our spouse or a refusal to admit we’re wrong in discussions with co-workers. Regardless, we can’t just blame the GPS. We have to own it and change it. If we’re going down the wrong roads because of our own sinfulness, the course- correction is simple but not always easy. Confess, repent, and turn back to the Lord.
Pastor Tommy hit on this during a recent sermon series, so here are a couple of verses you might remember.
To the church in Ephesus, Jesus said,
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” (Revelation 2:4-5)
And to the church in Laodicea, Jesus said,
“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:19-20)
We know this: God is waiting to forgive us and use us. Ask Peter. Denying Christ three times definitely qualifies as getting off track, but the Lord forgave him and used him to build the church.
If we discover we’ve been inadvertently led astray by a deceptive GPS, the solution also begins by turning to God. When we were lost in Italy, I prayed. A lot. We were lost and nothing shy of God’s help would get us back on track. When we realize a liar is giving us directions, we stop listening to the liar!
“Watch out for false prophets,” Jesus said. “They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” (Matthew 7:15)
In other words, the lies of the devil will eat us up while leading us astray. When my truck told me to turn right and I knew the only way home was to turn left, I canceled the navigation and turned left. The problem, as far as I can figure, always begins when we don’t filter our course through the Word of God and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, so the solution always involves turning back to what we know to be true and trustworthy.
There are millions of sources for information on how to live, including blogs like this one, but anything that doesn’t align with God’s Word will take us places we don’t want to go. The scenery might look nice and the ride might be smooth in the beginning, but sooner or later it gets dark, cold, and lonely, and we realize we can’t find our way back on our own. The sooner we recognize and admit we’re lost, the sooner the Holy Spirit can help us get back home.
“God, teach me lessons for living so I can stay the course. Give me insight so I can do what you tell me— my whole life one long, obedient response. Guide me down the road of your commandments; I love traveling this freeway! Give me an appetite for your words of wisdom, and not for piling up loot. Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets, invigorate me on the pilgrim way. Affirm your promises to me— promises made to all who fear you. Deflect the harsh words of my critics— but what you say is always so good. See how hungry I am for your counsel; preserve my life through your righteous ways!” (Psalm 119:33-40, The Message)