GOD’S GPS

Have you ever been driving in an unfamiliar location and decided to use your GPS to get home as expeditiously as possible? We all frequently do just this, I imagine, and, in the beginning, we faithfully follow our GPS voice’s instructions, grateful for the guidance. About halfway there, however, we may begin to recognize the area and, with this recognition, decide that we can handle things on our own from here, making a turn that deviates from the route of our all-knowing GPS vanguard. Within a few blocks, we often realize that we are quite lost. With this realization, we are suddenly very comforted by the GPS guide, which is saying one word and only one word before leading us out of the logistical morass we have brought about. That word is “Repositioning.” This word means that there is still hope that we are going to be able to get back on the road, the one that will lead home.

This scenario inspired me to think about God and the roads that He, in His wisdom and love, is placing us on, navigating us through every twist and turn in our journeys – how He knows the way and how we don’t – how He often has to say, “Repositioning,” after we blunder our way down the highways of our lives. Right away, the Biblical precedent for this thought came to my mind, as I considered all the women and men who, from the pages of Scripture, required the one and true GPS Master to call out, “Repositioning,” as He altered history to bring them back onto the lane that would, in the end, safely deliver them to His destination for them.

My trusted friend and blog advisor, Michael Canale, and I considered the fact that almost every person in the Bible has failed in one capacity or another, requiring God to reposition both them and providence. Because of God’s inclination and power to rescue in these situations, we decided that this was a worthy topic for this week’s blog.

Indeed, it is a very brief Biblical honeymoon before the pattern of straying from God’s GPS, so to speak, establishes itself.

The Garden of Eden is the backdrop for the first wrong turn by mankind. Enjoying the love of and unfettered access to God, Adam and Eve or humanity, depending on your theology, nevertheless, decided to get off the GPS track on which God had so graciously put them and to strike out on their own, trading complete harmony with God for a bite of the one and only forbidden fruit in the Garden. Seeing what they had done, God looked down, said “Repositioning,” and, in time, would send Jesus into the world to save that same world in the greatest rescue mission of the ages.

Nothing that followed the Garden of Eden changed this pattern of mankind veering off the road and getting lost, necessitating God’s response, of “Repositioning.”

Consider Jonah. In a divine effort to save an evil city, God tapped Jonah to travel the road to Nineveh to accomplish just that. Jonah, however, got off of his ordained GPS route and onto a ship bound for Tarshish – going in a completely opposite direction from Nineveh. God took one look at this debacle and said, “Repositioning.” He sent a storm on the sea; He dispatched a whale; the whale swallowed Jonah. After three days in the belly of the whale, it spit up its now compliant passenger and Jonah was back in alignment with God’s will as he traveled the highway to Nineveh and spoke for God in order to save a city thought to be beyond redemption.

Consider David. Who could have been more firmly traveling the road on which God had put him than this King of Israel. There was no battle he could not win, as he inquired of God for strategies before even a skirmish. He knew well and closely followed God who never loses a battle. For a very long season, God’s metaphorical GPS path was walked without deviation by David. Then came Bathsheba and, with her, adultery and even murder. “How are the mighty fallen!” In this egregious case, God must have cried, “Repositioning.” Nathan, David’s trusted friend, would confront him, there would be repentance with consequences and this mighty King would be back on track so greatly that God would refer to him, quite exclusively, as “ A man after God’s own heart.”

How about Peter? This faithful disciple was so clearly on God’s road for his life that he, of all the disciples, was the one to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. And yet, as Jesus himself predicted, it was Peter who took as devastating a moral detour as any in the Bible when he denied Jesus three times. God said, “ Repositioning” and Peter, under the power of the Holy Spirit, was transformed from a fisherman to such an effective public speaker and evangelist that he saved 3,000 souls on Pentecost and, ultimately, walked the road of martyrdom willingly and courageously to honor his Jesus.

Hasn’t everyone in and out of Scripture started on the road of life following God’s GPS and then taken off in his or her own direction, away from that divine travel itinerary? In these moments, it can be easy to think one is too far afield now, the celestial road too distant and unreachable to travel. If, on those occasions, we listen carefully, we’ll hear God speaking one word – not “finished!” not “lost!” not “disqualified!” Can’t we almost hear it now – God so kindly, so patiently, so encouragingly, saying, “Repositioning.” In no time at all, we will all be back on THE road, that amazing, fulfilling road, the one that leads home.