The material of this post probably isn't a new idea. Actually I know it isn't. After I developed my idea I googled, "God is like a GPS" and found lots of pages. But I like to think my explanation is better. :)
Life is like driving, and God is like the GPS. Most of the time, we know the path we need to go, to work, school, church... we remember the path. But it wasn't always this way. Somebody had to show us the first time we went to these places. And no matter how we live our life, there will always come days where we need to find a place we've never been to before.
If we've kept the GPS on our dashboard as we were learning to drive, we'll have no problem using it when these situations arise. If we have never used the GPS system up to this point, we might not know what to do with it at first. We might get impatient as it acquires satellites or lose trust in it all together as it directs us into a lake.
Tossing the GPS to the backseat, we believe we can find our own way or perhaps we reach for that atlas from 1997 back there somewhere. It's shoved so deeply into the driver's back seat pocket that chewed pencils, halves of combs, and a broken umbrella erupt from the pocket as we tug hard for this saving grace. So relived having found something actually reliable, we tear off the old sucker stuck to the back of it and begin peeling each individual page free of the mysterious sticky substance residing in between each page. All while still driving. Who has time to stop when we're already late? Besides, there's a chance we're already going in the right direction.
It might not be until our gas light comes on that we even realize how unreliable this old atlas is. We've lost track of how long we've been driving around lost in a false sense of security, convinced everything would work itself out all right. It might only be then that we finally stop, reach for the GPS again, and force ourselves to be patient enough for it to load the maps. Once the GPS points the way, the destination may seem far from reach, especially with the little gas and time we have. We may even despair and think we might as well have driven into that lake.
But the GPS can lead us anywhere, even a gas station. Even if we take a wrong turn, the GPS will always recalculate a new path for us. How we get to our destination is up to us, but God will always be there to navigate for us when we are lost.
I realize this metaphor is not without its flaws. Sometimes the GPS never acquires satellites or tells us to go in a direction that is clearly a lake. God doesn't lead us to our doom. But maybe there is a lesson here too. Maybe we're not supposed to go where we're driving right now. Maybe we're not ready for it yet. God could be taking care of us in a way we don't fully understand. But when the time is right, He will lead us, just as a GPS, so long as we don't toss Him in the backseat.
* acquiring satellites* :)
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