Lost

By Lucy Wirtz

“Trust me, I know where I am going.”

This is something I routinely tell my family and friends when I am going somewhere new, and as I confidently leave the room they chuckle.

Just to be safe, I had us both turn on the GPS for our phone’s. Then we started heading to our destination.

We were cruising down the highway and were on track to arrive on time. We started heading towards an area near my hometown and I was feeling confident in my directional skills, so I decided that I knew where I was going and could turn off the GPS. There was no need to drain the batteries on our phones, so we turned them off and kept driving.

Yup, you know where this is going…

We continued driving, and after ten minutes I realized that I was heading in a totally unknown direction. I had to turn to the passenger and tell him that I had no idea where we were.

But wait! Wasn’t that a landmark I knew? “Never mind!” I said, “I know where we are! You can turn the GPS back off.”

Ten minutes later that sinking feeling hit again. I had no idea where we were.

I did this not once, not twice, but three times.

In the time span of one hour I had confidently told my passenger three times that I was completely sure where I was, and in the time span of one hour I had gotten us lost three times.

So the moral of this story is never trust me to drive you anywhere…

Well…sort of, but more importantly, there is something else we can learn from this story.

You see, life is a lot like that road trip.

Life can be crazy and confusing and it can be easy to feel lost, so we turn to God to give us direction. We pray more, and look closely for any sign that He sends so we can figure out whatever we may be going through. We listen carefully to His every direction and let Him lead us by the hand out of the mess we are in.

Then things go back to normal again. We slip back into our routine. We start to get comfortable and think we know exactly what is going on. Gradually the habit of turning to God in prayer dies and we begin living like we are totally in control.

Then slowly but surely our lives begin to crumble before our very eyes.

You see, as true as it is that I cannot drive without a GPS, we cannot make it through this life without God’s guiding hand.

He longs for us to be in union with Him and desires that we trust Him enough to give Him the freedom to form and direct our lives.

But we have free will.

We can choose to be in control. We can choose to ignore His voice. We can choose to figure everything out by ourselves and end up broken and empty in the process. Or we can choose to stay like a child who trustingly follows, surrendering all the cares of this life to a Father who loves us more intimately than we can begin to imagine.

It doesn’t matter if you grew up with God in your life or not. Right now, in this moment, He is inviting you to let Him in and give meaning, purpose, and direction to your life.

You may not always understand what is going on, but that doesn’t matter. God knows you better than you will ever know yourself, and He only wants the very best for you. All you have to do is trust Him and follow.

You and I have the choice to drive through this life without God.

I don’t know about you, but I plan to keep my GPS on.