Lessons from a GPS

I have recently found myself in a position where I have some seemingly major decisions to make.  They have the potential to steer my future in one direction or another.  I have been reminded of a time when I was in a similar situation, although previously accompanied by other less than desirable circumstances. 

A couple years ago, I had been going through a period of stress that was negatively affecting my relationship with my family and was manifesting itself in physical ailments.  Along with daily stress, I was also consumed by where things were headed.  There were a number of different directions that I saw my life (and that of my family) headed and each had multiple sub-paths.  I was overwhelmed by the number of decisions I thought like I had to make.  I wanted to make wise choices in keeping with God’s commands and desires but felt paralyzed, unable to make even one decision.

During this time, I had begun working on a project out of town that I had to travel to on a regular basis.  The first couple times I traveled there I got a GPS in my rental car.  Now in most areas of my life I am pretty laid back and easy going, sometimes to a fault, and anything but “Type A.”  However, when I am driving to a new location, I like to know exactly where I am going.  I don’t just want to know landmarks and a list of turns.  If possible I like to be able to look at a map and see exactly where I will be going on the map.  This way, if I get off course, I have a better chance of backtracking and correcting my error.  This is not at all how the GPS units that I was given worked.  They merely displayed an illustration of your vehicle in space and told you what the next turn would be.

That morning, while in the airport, I had read a devotional essay on Psalm 119:105 which says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”  The author of the essay explained that the job of a lamp is not to light up the entire course to be walked but rather to shed just enough light to illuminate our feet and the next step.  God promises to make the next step visible and asks us to take that step before he lights up the next one.  He never intends to show us several steps down the road as he is in control and guides our path and will get us to our destination.  I had spent that morning and afternoon letting this idea marinate in my mind as I made my trip out of town.

As I fiddled with the GPS, I became very frustrated as it would not give me any indication of the big picture of where I was going.  In my minimal experience with GPS units beforehand, I knew that it would lead me to my destination eventually as long as I strictly followed its instructions.  Sometimes the routes were unorthodox but they would always lead to the desired destination.  I wanted to know the big picture and have the freedom to veer off course if needed for stops in between but I couldn’t plan for any stops since I didn’t know where I was really going.  The only information I could get was the approximate distance to the next turn.

It didn’t take long until I saw the parallel to what I had read that morning and what I was dealing with at home.  The only way I would reach my destination was to follow the instructions of the next turn.  It was irrelevant that I didn’t know where I was along the route or what the next four turns would be.  If I had faith that the GPS was leading me in the right direction, all that mattered was that I took the only step that had been illuminated – the next one.

I realized that I had unrelenting faith that God knows the big picture and that he knows where he is leading me.  Even if I knew what the next several steps would be, I wouldn’t be able to make sense of them without the proper context.  All that mattered was that I took the next step, the only one that God had illuminated.  It completely changed my outlook on my circumstances.  I didn’t have to make several decisions at once and decide how I would react to the subsequent dominoes that would fall.  I just had to take the next step.  One step in faith, knowing that God is good and loving God.

I am reminded of this analogy now.  God knows where my education, my career, and my life are heading.  He has plans that are far larger than I am.  All I have to do is take one step.