That @#$%^& GPS!

Do you remember when you had to get out a map to find out how to get from one place to the next? I am talking about the big paper maps, the kind that you had to fold back up after you finished with it. It always took two or three tries to get it folded right, even when you thought you followed the folds. We went from that to map books and then maps on the Internet, like Google Maps or Map Quest. Since they were awkward to use in the car, we would end up printing the Internet maps and the directions so we could navigate from one place to another.

Finally, a fully electronic system came on the market, the Global Positioning System or GPS. When they first came out for civilian use, they had a built in error factor. It wasn’t in the units themselves, but it was built into the satellites’ programming. It was felt at the time, that the error was necessary in order to prevent the “enemy” from using our GPS system to target our cities. At last, someone realized that if “they” launched a nuclear strike, an error of a hundred feet or so wasn’t going to matter if the weapon could destroy everything within a five mile radius. Thus, the consumer version of the GPS hit the market and it became very common to see the small units mounted on windshields, or built into the car’s entertainment system.

I use the GPS daily for my work. Most of the time, when it tells me I am at my destination, I am right in front of the client’s house. They are most amazing and I don’t know how they do what they do. They can even keep with up with my occasional missed turn, to the tune of “Recalculating” as the computer finds an alternate route.

The problem with the GPS is not its inherent accuracy, but with the accuracy of the stored maps. I have been directed to cross rivers where there is no bridge, or being told to turn down a road that no longer exists, or being told a house is right in front of me when there is nothing there but trees. Then I lose my fondness for that @#$%^& GPS. There is nothing like driving down a road when the GPS says you are in the middle of a field and it simply waits until I get back onto the road again.

As human beings, wonderful creations of God, we have a roadmap we can follow to get where we are supposed to go. It isn’t drawn out for us, the directions are strictly verbal. All we have to do is follow them. Fortunately for us, God picked a special group of people to put his words into format we can use, the set of directions known as the Bible. Whether we use the printed version or one on a tablet or smart phone, we always have those directions available to us. In its own way, it is also a GPS, except this time it is God’s Positioning System. Are you lost? He can help you find your way back to him. Do you have a good destination in mind? He is going to lead you there. Do you have a choice of paths you can take and you don’t know whether to go right or left? Just program the correct destination into God’s Positioning System and you will take the right fork every time. There are no errors in his maps, no incorrect directions. All of it is clear and error-free.

Those of us who use the Global Positioning System get tired of that voice telling us which way to turn or letting us know she is “Recalculating”. The good thing is that when we are using God’s Positioning System, we have to just listen to his son's voice in order to know which way to go and to keep on the correct road. If you listen to that voice, you can never go wrong, never take the wrong path. If you come to the raging river, you will always find a bridge. If you are lost in the forest of the world’s distractions, he will show you the clear path. Regardless of where you are in the world, or in what situation, God’s Positioning System will always lead you to his home. All you have to do if follow his son, Jesus’s, voice.