GPS SAGA

For those of you who may be long time readers of my site, you might recall that I have had a love/hate relationship with GPS’s from my post entitled GPS.

This week I come to tell you that I still stand by that relationship with the good ole fashioned GPS that you plug into your car since I do not have a good cell phone to help navigate.

 

This weekend my youngest son and I had another harrowing experience trusting our GPS rather than the google maps that I checked out ahead of time.

These experiences provide me with more parallels or lessons to think about which I find relatable to our walk with the Lord.

 

Let me set the scene:

 

We were headed to a house about a half hour away where my son was meeting up with friends for pictures and then for a dance. According to the GPS we were going to arrive five minutes ahead of the scheduled meeting time.

It was evening so it was dark out and the last four miles of our journey was on unfamiliar roads.

We didn’t think too much about the different path the GPS told us to go as we tend to trust them thinking they know the fastest and best route to go.  The GPS said there were 1.7 miles left via the route it was sending us on, so following the instructions of the GPS, we turn on this particular road where there are no street lights.

The road started out as a bit of a dirt road, then curved around a few bends followed by ice tracks.  We kept going at first figuring it couldn’t be that bad if the GPS was sending us this way and hoping it would get better soon.

Before long though the road seemed to narrow, became hilly and turned into being totally snow and ice covered.  With the snow tires on the car, we were managing pretty well but with about a mile left my son says he thinks we should turn around and find the road goggle maps had said to go when I was looking at the route on the computer earlier in the day.

This moment in time was all too reminiscent of my son and I heading to a baseball game last summer where we followed the GPS that lead us on this dirt road that ended up being so narrow that one car could barely fit and where the “road”  had these huge divots. Being out in the boonies we lost cell service and we thought for sure we would be stuck, the car would bottom out, and no one would ever find us! In case you are wondering, yes, we did survive that trip once we made a big turn and could see a normal road ahead!

 

Back to the current story: Once confronted with the snowy road a sense of fear enveloped me for a few minutes but once voicing that fear to my son we tried to set that aside and figured we had to try our best to get back to civilization.

 

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

 

The only option we could come up with was trying to back down (we didn’t have to worry about any traffic!) all the way until we could find a big enough spot to turn around if possible.  A lifesaver for me was my van’s back up camera! I truly do not know how we would have managed without it especially with the curves of the road in the pitch dark.

So, yes, we slowly backed down the whole .7  or more miles trying to steer the car slowly so as not to go off the road.  I know that does not sound like much but when you are backing down a hill and curvy road at probably a few miles an hour so that you don’t slip or get stuck, it took a long time!!

My son, in his dress shoes, would get out into the snow every now and then to access the possibility of being able to do a K turn to at least go back down frontwards which would have been much easier! At long last we found a spot to turn around which was almost back to the beginning of the icy part!

 

Photo courtesy of 语录 图说 under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

 

It was one of those moments when I was so glad to be back on stable ground and could almost breathe a sigh of relief and thanksgiving!! (But my son said don’t get too excited yet!) Going frontwards was much easier and more pleasurable for sure!

We were then able to go the “google” way arriving 35 minutes later than expected! My son was a good sport about it all and was happy they waited for him to take the pictures.

 

This experience made me think about our journey of life on this earth.

A reminder to:

not put our trust in anything but God and His Word; our faith is in Him alone

sometimes we might need to backtrack if we start going the wrong way

slow and steady is the way

we may plan our journey but ultimately the Lord is in control

God is greater than our fear; faith over fear

find shelter on the solid ground of Jesus, our Rock!

 

 

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.  –Jeremiah 17:7-8 (ESV)

We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.  –Proverbs 16:9 (NLT)