Not all that long ago, a pretty girl came to visit my wife. Note that she didn’t come to visit me, I don’t expect any pretty girls to do that unless 1) its my daughter in law one of these days or 2) I’ve done something stupid and wound up in the hospital, in which case the pretty girl who visits me will be Deniese (to kill me, likely). Besides, I wasn’t even home.

In any case, not being familiar with the area she was relying on her GPS, a service her cell phone offered. In the old days we would have used paper maps (in fact I have a GPS myself but when we travel around the area to strange places we STILL carry a map – call me old fashioned!) but this young lady didn’t have one. Well of course the cell phone died and she was unable to charge it, when she was *almost* to my house. And of course there was this minor thing – a covered bridge that had been torn down and is being rebuilt – that her GPS didn’t know about so didn’t warn her about.

In any case, the plucky gal didn’t just give up and turn tail and go home. She asked the locals where “Boynton Street” was. There is only one in town, and if she could get to either end of it she’d be home free. But for some time, no one seemed to know. Oh they knew the streets they hung out on, but this wasn’t one of them. Finally she found the right person who helped her get the rest of the way. She’d come so far but that last little bit almost eluded her. (I would note if she’d asked where the dump was in town she might have gotten a much better response sooner. No one knows Boynton Street but everyone seems to know where the dump is, which is duh on Boynton Street. Yes I live close to the dump – I am the closest house in town to it. I sure don’t regret it!)

The thing is, I never fully trust these buzz-box things. Folks who print maps seem to always get it right, and anything that “thinks” while giving you directions can really get it wrong. When my wife and I drove back from Oklahoma we knew exactly the route we were going to take. But since we had our own GPS with us we asked it down near the VA/NC/TN border the best way home. We asked because I wanted to know the mileage (mile markers run south to north and west to east, so you can’t tell by the mile marker how many miles are left. If you have no idea what I am talking about then likely you have never driven anywhere of distance)

In any case the fool thing told us to turn around and drive south to Knoxville. A long ways out of our path. Huh? It really persisted too, with the annoying lady saying “recalculating: turn around at the next exit” basically. Eventually Deniese got into it and found that when someone had borrowed it they set it to “truck” – as in semi truck – and “avoid all tolls”. So it found ridiculous routes which would have added days to our trip. No thanks!

Ok, so what’s the bottom line here. In our lives, the bible is our map. Most folks sort of wander around and look at the scenery like tourists and never get anywhere, but we have a goal. We want to go to heaven. And regardless if you are just starting out as a newbie Christian or have traveled the road quite a bit, the map will lead us unerringly around all obstacles and straight to the pearly gates. However if we trust man-made buzz-box things that are whiz-bangy and flashy, unless they mimic our map correctly they will let us down. And because they are man made, they can also lead us astray in their attempts to “help” us.

Also being man made, when things happen unexpectedly they either give us no further direction or are unable to compensate for bridges that are missing in our walk of life. Asking others for help usually yields no real help – unless we come across someone else who’s been there before and is familiar with the road we are trying to walk on. Will we come to the end of our lives and just give up, or like the heroine of my story will we be determined enough to get there to find the right person - Jesus - to tell us how? You know, I bet like the Motel 6 commercial he’ll even leave the light on for us!

Randy