GPS IS FANTASTIC
Last March my family and I decided to spend our spring break, in my old stomping grounds of Nashville, TN. Nashville is one of my favorite places on earth, so we decided to make the four hour trek from the bustling metropolis of Bedford, IN to the beautiful and creativity-filled city of Nashville. It had been a long time since I had lived there or visited there, so I was amazed to see just how much everything had changed. Areas that were once just normal everyday streets have grown up and been transformed by the continued economic growth. Because of all the changes and the amount of time it has been since I last sojourned through the streets of Nashville, we relied very heavily on our GPS to get us around the city. Each day was a journey of experiencing all that Nashville had to offer and the GPS was our ultimate guide to finding whatever we needed and showing us the best possible route to get there. It was a great time spent with some of the most precious people in my life. But something struck me powerfully on the last day of our time together. We had just driven around the entire city of Nashville, going from one coffee shop to the next, when I looked at the Google Maps app on my iPhone and amazed at how much it had helped me the last few days. I even said to myself, "What would I have done without such an important app in my life?" Then it hit me. This app had done an amazing job of guiding us, directing us, letting us know where to go and how to get there, but how much more important is God than this app in my phone. God is the ultimate GPS in our lives. Imagine this, that the creator of the world is so alive that He can guide us, direct us, let us know where we need to go and the best way to get there! Hallelujah! But yet, we are way less dependent on Him to get us where we need to go in life than a GPS that we downloaded for free on a smart device.
OUR GUIDE FOR REAL LIVING
John, one of Jesus' 12 disciples and in fact a part of Jesus' inner three, wrote in his gospel of the guidance that is made available to us through the provision of the Holy Spirit. He says in John 16:3, "But when he, the Spirit of truth,comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. " A lot of times we have no idea where we are going because we cannot clearly see. We are confused by what is around us, what we need to do, how we need to live, what is right and wrong, or the reality that we are walking in. But here is the truth we need to know. Jesus died on the cross, rose again victorious, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, so that the Holy Spirit could come and GUIDE US into all truth and beyond that, tell us what is yet to come. This is what makes a GPS so convenient, it not only gives us the best route to take but it also takes into account the construction that is ahead of us that we can't see and if the traffic is light or heavy. It guides us through the best way to avoid the troublesome things that lie ahead so that we can get to where we need to go. How much more important is the Holy Spirit then? What is available to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit is not just guidance through the perils of a journey on the road, but the troublesome things that life has to bring before us that a lot of times pop up out of nowhere and take us by surprise.
So the question is before us all. Are we willing to fully rely on the true GPS that is available to us through the Holy Spirit or would we rather place our lives in the hands of the temporal things of the world to get us through the myriad of obstacles in our lives?
I choose God. How about you?
