GPS

For the record, I have a love/hate relationship with GPS’s….I am sure you have always wondered my thoughts about them and have always wanted to ask me about them!  🙂

I do not have a high tech “real” smart phone, so I continue to use the old fashioned GPS, punching in the actual address of where I want to go and wait for it to find the satellites and finally calculate where I want to go.

The love part is easy to understand when the GPS works like I think it should which would include getting me to my destination going the most direct route (aka highway) which might not happen as often as I wished! It is also handy to be alerted of traffic delays which can help me avoid idle time by going a little different route.

The dislike part is when the GPS takes me different paths on back-roads when I just want to hook up with the highway, or when it has me going in circles when I am trying to get to my destination timely!

 

The last month or so I have had several GPS experiences which caused me stop and reflect….

Recently, I was going one day a week, for a few weeks, to a certain destination, far enough away to make use of the GPS. I did look ahead of time quickly on a map to know I wanted to take the highway route, so I had a vague idea of which exit I wanted to take.  The GPS apparently thought the highway was not quite the fastest route.  I know the route from my house to the highway in the direction I wanted, which I dare say is probably all of two miles.  Even within that time, at least three times the GPS kept wanting me to go a different way.  Have you ever experienced that annoying GPS voice that keeps telling you you are going the wrong direction?  The voice that thinks it is right even though you know better?

Even after getting on the highway, that GPS lady wanted me to take the first exit I came to.  Once again, I ignored her directions and kept going, waiting for her to “recalculate.” At last she got the idea of the way I had in mind to go!  I had to trust the rest of the route to the GPS lady as I knew it would be more back-roads I was not familiar with.

REFLECTION:  We might have a plan or direction we think our life should be heading, but God is in charge, not us. We need to be in tune to follow His lead and prompting for our lives.  The path we might have in mind might not be what is best for us.

 

On my return trip that day, I knew not to necessarily trust the way the GPS wanted me to go home because once again I figured it would be leading me the non-highway way!  So, I kind of had my bearings and knew which way I should head.  I had made it so far to this one particular road and I knew I had to take some turn off of there.  Every intersection I came to, the GPS lady wanted me to turn, but it kept adding time to my destination.  I really felt I was suppose to keep going straight so I tried that.  I finally just gave up, recognized a sign for an airport I was familiar with and just went that way though it was not the way I went originally. Finally, an extra 20 minutes later I arrived back home.

Later that night I tried writing out the basic instructions, especially for the return trip, so the frustration and longer trip would not happen again. Unfortunately, the second day of that return trip, I inadvertently thought my instructions said County Rd 8, instead of County Rd 18!  Yep, you guessed it, I never saw County Rd 8, and this time just decided to keep going straight on that road until I eventually hit the highway.  Well, the highway was further away in the wrong direction than I wanted to go! More frustration and longer travel time!!

The third time was a charm!  I knew it was exactly the third turn off the main road.  It sure was a relief to NOT have extra time added on to the already 1 1/2 hr trip!  It still baffles me that the GPS will originally say more time but after turning at the correct turn, it recalculates and the time goes down by 10 minutes!

REFLECTION: Sometimes it is necessary to take the long road to get to our final destination. We should keep in mind that it is really okay and try not to let the frustration win out.  Instead smile, thank God for the adventure, see the positive and praise Him for what you see and those you are with. Getting to the final destination is the ultimate goal.

Photo courtesy of BK  under Creative Commons License (CC BY SA-2.0)

 

As you probably know by now, a friend and I go to many places to see Third Day!  Our latest adventure took us to Toccoa Falls, Georgia.  We flew down to South Carolina and then drove to Georgia.  Once again, the GPS presented us with some challenges.

I will admit, I usually just plug the address of my destination in the GPS without taking more time to look at a map and see exactly the route it is telling me to go or what the area is like.  I figure that is what the GPS is for!!  It worked pretty well until we were driving from a park to the venue for the concert.  At one point, we are on the main road and suddenly I see a sign for the entrance for the college where the concert was being held. But, the GPS said we still had about ten minutes to go before arriving at the address.

So, we continued on to find that the place where the GPS was taking us had a yellow gate with the road being blocked off!  We continued trusting that GPS lady who was directing us further down that current road. Guess what happened?  We literally kept going in circles!  Some of the places she said to turn looked more like a walking path but again with gates!

We even resorted to putting the address in my friend’s phone and that also took us in circles never quite getting to the right destination.

Photo courtesy of Sally Cummings under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)  Words added by hopetoinspireyou.com.

 

Yes, we actually drove around for over 30 minutes until we finally decided to go to the main entrance of the college and find someone to ask.  Well, what do you know? All we had to do was go straight ahead and there it was!!  We were so close the one time…we had pulled in that main entrance, but the GPS wanted us to then take the first right turn which we did….again just going in circles even to a dead end street!

In the end, with the sequence of events after arriving, we concluded that going in circles was all part of a master plan. God’s perfect timing!

REFLECTION: Sometimes our lives seem to go in circles or like we are spinning our wheels.  Try not to get frustrated, yet try to be smart.  Keep trusting in God’s perfect timing for your life.

A third episode of GPS issues within a month was just a few days ago. This time though we were local, so did not have the normal GPS with us, so as my husband was driving I tried to use his phone to navigate.  We were dropping something off and I happened to think it would be easier to go a back route to drop my son at a friend’s house.  The problem was we didn’t have the house number, but we knew the name of the road.

Well, once again the GPS was sending us in circles at the end…looping us right back to where we started!  We pulled over at the one point and tried to get the house number to punch it in, but we were out in the country so much that we didn’t have phone service!

Yes, we did finally make it, but again, it was the long way around, going out of our way.

REFLECTION:  Know your final destination!  Look at your options in situations and look for the best way to go. That will make your traveling much quicker and easier!

In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.  –Proverbs 16:9  (NIV)

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.  –Jeremiah 17:7  (NIV)