As a kid, our family vacations always involved a really long road trip. And I can’t picture one of our vacations without envisioning one of those old-fashioned road maps. You know, the ones just slightly smaller than the tarps used to cover baseball fields for a rain delay.
I can still see my parents pulling over and unfolding it, spreading it across the width of the dashboard. I remember thinking how hard being an adult must be. All those lines and dots made no sense to me, and I couldn’t fathom trying to use a map every day in order to navigate my way around the world.
So I’m grateful to be an adult in the age of technology, because we have a little thing called GPS. Siri has saved me more times than I can imagine. And she speaks my language.
Instead of saying ridiculous things like “head west”, she says “go through this light, then at the next one, turn right.” Clear, specific instructions are what I need to navigate situations where I’m feeling a little lost or uncomfortable.
So you can understand my complete and overwhelming feelings of betrayal when my daughters and I found ourselves driving through the middle of Dallas last summer without a single clue as to how to get back to the airport. We were in a rental car and I didn’t know how to operate the bluetooth system. I felt uncomfortable with my surroundings and nothing looked familiar. I asked my daughter to put the airport into the GPS.
Immediately, and with confident authority, Siri began calmly explaining how to find our way. I sat back and relaxed a bit, knowing that Siri had it under control. However, I noticed as the arrival time began ticking down, there was no sign of an airport. Finally, with just one minute until “arrival time,” I began to have some significant doubts.
Sure enough, we found ourselves driving through a neighborhood that could only be described as dilapidated. In her cheeriest voice, Siri announced “you have arrived at your destination.” If Siri had a face, she’d be grinning from ear to ear.
Unfortunately, Siri clearly had no idea what she was doing.
There are times in life when I’m confidently walking with God. I feel sure and steady, and even feel relaxed enough to actually stop trying to figure everything out for myself. Then there are other times when I’m genuinely trying to listen for his direction, but I have my own destination in mind. Usually it’s a dream or an outcome that I would really like to see come to fruition. And usually I want it, like…yesterday.
And suddenly I find myself in a place where I’m super uncomfortable. Nothing looks like it’s supposed to, and this particular journey isn’t going at all like I had imagined.
God isn’t like Siri (but I feel like you already knew that.) His voice IS trustworthy. His voice IS true and sure and it IS steadfast. I try to read God’s word every day so that I’ll know his voice when I hear it. Yet even then, I still sometimes find myself asking, “Um, do you really know what you’re doing?”
As humans, we have plenty of emotions that we don’t necessarily know what to do with. What a joy that God doesn’t hold that against us. Going to Jesus in our most raw, emotional state leaves room for him to speak right into that confusion or disorientation. Even if we don’t understand how we got so off course or remain utterly confused as to why we might have ended up where we are, we don’t have to turn God off at that point and try to figure it out ourselves.
He’s a little more powerful than advanced satellite technology that glitches occasionally. And God can certainly account for detours.
The detours of this life don’t hinder the outcomes he has planned for us. If we continue to follow him, we can trust that He’s leading us exactly where we need to be.