One night while visiting family in the Seattle area my mother-in-law offered to watch the kids so we could go out to dinner with my husband's brother and his wife. A night out, a nice dinner, good company and a chance to wear pretty shoes put a smile on my face. We had the best dinner at the restaurant where my husband’s youngest brother worked.
My husband and his older brother thought it would be entertaining to program in their parent's address and see if they could confuse the GPS. Frick and Frack are the names I choose to call them because of this goofy idea.
What we ladies thought would be a nice ride home became a series of twists and turns in neighborhoods that Frick and Frack had never been in and they are from the area. Recalculating, in so many feet take a U-turn, left turn ahead, turn right, and dead end ahead began to block out the sound of the music as our GPS tried to navigate the way home.
With every turn, I came one-step closer to losing my amazing dinner as carsickness began to creep in. They spun the car this way and that way thinking they could get the GPS confused. My sister-in-law fell asleep and I worried with each left turn her head would hit the window. I kept asking the guys how much longer? I was not finding the same humor in this. I told them I hoped the GPS would say, “Listen to me dummies and do what I tell you!” I had to go to the bathroom, I was carsick and I was tired. Thankfully they eventually grew tired of choosing their own course, listened to the GPS and, we found our way to where we were going. What should have been a 15-20 min drive lasted over an hour.
Life can be a series of twist and turns, it is full of hills to climb, unknowns to navigate, and dead ends. Sometimes it seems like a guessing game when it comes to which path we should choose to go down. What may look good just might take us to a place we should have never been and we find ourselves throwing it into reverse and high tailing it out of there. Sometime we get so lost we are not even sure how to find our way back to where we started.
God's word is a lamp to your feet and light for your path (Psalm 119:105 NIV). It is like the GPS of our lives. I listened to Richelle Opland speak to a group of young ladies at the Whatever Girls meeting in November and she used this analogy of God’s word lighting our path. She said, “Think of God’s word as a lantern and as you hold it up depending on how dark it is you may only have enough light to see one step at time but it guides you safely to where you need to go.”
No matter where we are in life at times we are faced with choice of which direction should I take? For you teens that are reading this, you are faced with often overwhelming choices about what direction your life is to go. Where should I go to school, what kind of carrier do I want, or how will I know who is the right person for me someday? Your teenage years are some the best years of your life but they can also be the hardest as you find yourself at cross roads not knowing which way to turn.
One thing always remains the same when you are faced with which direction to go. God’s word will guide you every time. If I had known this as a teen my life would have been a much smoother ride. If you follow God’s word, the bible (God’s Positioning Satellite) and listen to the turn by turn directions of the Holy Spirit you won’t find yourself making a series of wrong turns as God tries to recalculate your direction and put you back on the right course.
Written by Kim Chaffin
