The Only Way to Go

Recently a friend was telling me about her mother-in-law’s first experience of being in a car when a satnav was working. In her mid-eighties at the time, Margaret seemed fascinated by the disembodied voice coming into the car giving very specific directions to the driver, her son, who was obeying every twist and turn of the route.

At the end of the journey, she remarked to my friend, “that must be a very busy office that woman is in. She has to give different directions to so many people at once.”

It’s a funny, true story and it got me thinking about how much we depend on our electronic route planners to get us to where we need to be. We’ve come to rely so much on that disembodied voice in our cars, haven’t we?

I find that following a satnav can be quite frustrating at times. If ‘she’ or ‘he’ says “take the next turning on the left” and I find there’s a left turning while the voice is still halfway through the direction, I’m never sure whether to take that turning or wait till I get to the next one which I can see only a short distance ahead. Why can’t it be made clearer?

Also, when I get to the end of my journey, I get very annoyed with ‘the voice’ which, as soon as I’ve entered the postcode of my destination, repeats endlessly, “you have arrived at your destination” while I’m still looking for the exact building I need or circling a busy car park looking for a parking space. I’ve been known to share some quite lively discussions, not conducted always in my quietest or calmest voice, with the unseen lady or man ‘in the office’ at that point!

Since the arrival of satnav many of us have become lazy and no longer use, or even have, books of road maps. I think that’s such a shame. I love looking at maps, planning a route and seeing what well known topographical or historical features I might be going to pass.

But whether we prefer to use maps or to rely on satnav, we all like to feel that we’re moving in the right direction and (mostly) we appreciate anything which will help us get to where we’re going. We like to think we know best, that we should be the one making the decisions about whether we continue on the route we’re on, whether we need to take a detour or whether we need to retrace our steps.

Of course, we all have recourse to a personal satnav in Jesus. A satnav which will always have the right route for us but will never impose, waiting patiently until we realise that we’ve taken, or are about a take, a wrong turn or simply chosen a path which will lead us through confusion, disappointment, even pain.

We resist using that satnav so often. We don’t like to hand over control. We want to be in charge of our own lives, even when we know from experience the problems that may cause. We don’t welcome what we see as interference in the way we organise our lives.

However, when we look back on how far we’ve come and what we’ve seen and experienced on the way to where we are now, it’s like looking at a beautiful map. We can see the lie of the land and relive both the memorable high points and the inevitable lows which we’d rather forget. It’s the map of our lives, drawn before we existed, with a clearly marked route from beginning to end.

Yes, the detours we take when left to our own devices may seem tempting, even exciting but we really need to listen to that ‘man in the office.’ The man who is able to give different directions to so many people all at once.

Through the Bible we have a physical atlas to help us with our journey through life and through sensing and knowing the presence of Jesus with us we have the perfect satnav. We just have to learn to keep quiet often enough to hear what’s being said!

Whatever you’re navigating in your life at the moment I pray that you’ll make time to check in with Jesus, your spiritual satnav regularly. Like my friend’s mother-in-law, we don’t understand how he does it but, if we trust him, we know that we’ll arrive safely.