I was told a while ago that God is like a giant GPS. Until recently, those were just words. Just a nice little saying akin to what you would find in a fortune cookie, or a bumper sticker. But now those words have become reality in my life.
Before I can tell you how that came about, first let's look at what this saying means.
Why do we use a GPS? We use it when we are lost and don't know where to go. Whether we are going someplace new, or have turned ourselves around to a point that we don't know where we have ended up, we trust a piece of technology that is no bigger than a postcard to show us the way. God is the same way. When we are lost in life, we turn to Him to guide us. Psalms 119:105 (NLT) says "Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path." So let's say you plug an address into the GPS in your car and head off towards your destination. The GPS will tell you what your next turn should be and how long your trip should take. But let's say you take a left turn when it told you to go right. The GPS will recalculate your route for you, based on your decision. So your destination will still be the same, but now your trip time has increased, and you have a longer road ahead of you. No matter how many wrong turns or stops you take, the GPS will continue to guide and direct you to where you need to go. But, you have control of the wheel and your speed. The GPS can't make the appropriate turns for you. It can only show you the way. and it is up to you to follow. The same holds true for God. He will lay out a path for us, and it is up to us to trust Him. The only difference between God and the GPS is that most times, we don't know what destination He is leading us to. We have to believe what David said in Psalm 119, and know that he will guide out feet. But sometimes while we are driving, the GPS may send us down one road, and we think are smarter than this machine. We may take a different road, thinking it will be faster. Most times, we try the same trick with God. Ecclesiastes 7:13 says "Accept the way God does things, for who can straighten what He has made crooked." Just because to us, the path He has laid out seems a bit crooked, we instead choose to go our own way. One of my favcorite verses from the Bible is Proverbs 20:24 (NIV "A person’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand their own way?" However, living that verse turned out to be a lot harder than I thought.
This is the story of how I tried to trick God and make my own way.
About five years ago, I was lost. In hindsight, I was exactly where I needed to be, but I had no idea . I met a beautiful woman and we began dating. Soon after I moved in with her. She was perfect. She understood me, put up with me, interacted with me on a different level. Not too long after that I got a new job selling furniture. I had a boss named Paul. Everything seemed perfect. My relationship blossomed. I sold furniture at a fantastic rate and was soon outselling the veteran salespeople I worked with. And Paul became not only my boss, but my mentor. He talked with me, brought me back to church, took me to men's groups, gave me books to read, and tried to help me be a better man. What could go wrong? A few months after I started working at this furniture store, they hired a new receptionist. Blonde hair, blue eyes, big boobs, and a sweet tongue. And I was infatuated. She had a boyfriend. I had a girlfriend. But it didn't matter. We soon began a relationship on the side. I started to lose focus at work and paid more attention to the receptionist's desk than the customers walking around me. And my sales started to slide. My behaviors as a whole began to regress. I began partying, drinking, and staying out late. I began lying, cheating and stealing more often. I began to act like a totally different person. I even began to listen to Paul less and less, and soon barely at all. Especially since he saw the road I was taking and warned me against it. I still didn't listen. Soon, she left her boyfriend, I left my girlfriend, and we were together. In the following 4 years, I had my share of more heartache, anger, and grief than love, or peace. Within the first month of our new relationship, she cheated on me with the ex she has just left. I forgave her. But it wouldn't be the last. Five more times, with four different men I forgave her for her infidelity. And when we finally ended it for good, she blamed me for not trusting her enough. But it wasn't all her fault. Most of our relationship was long distance and I grew to become more and more controlling. I even made the mistake once to cheat on her. And on and on it went. During those four years we broke up about a dozen times. I used to joke around that every time we did, I was rewarded. Once, within days of a break up, I came into a lump sum of thousands of dollars. Another time, I was handed a job immediately after a break up. My truck that had been broken and unusable for weeks was miraculously fixed, right after we broke up. And there were many others. I always found it weird that as soon as I would leave her, something good would happen right away. I paid it no attention and continued to fight for a woman that would openly cheat and lie every chance she got. When it was finally over for good, I actually felt relief. Something inside me clicked and I knew it was right. Now I used to play the blame game and point fingers, but I can no longer do that. What I went through is no one's fault but my own. Blaming her for my heartache would be like buying a ticket to a haunted house five times in a row and getting mad at the ghosts and ghouls for scaring me each time. I took a detour off of my path onto a road I had no business being on and paid for it dearly. And five years later, I was just beginning to find my way back. Soon after the final break up, I bumped into a friend of a friend and we hit it off. We began seeing each other, then began dating and after a while I moved in with her. For the last three years I have held the same job, and have excelled at it. My boss is also my mentor. He took brought me back to church, took me to men's groups, gave me books to read, and tried to build me into a better man. Sound familiar?
Last week was when it actually hit me. I am now in a different state, with different people, but have found myself in EXACTLY the same place I was in five years ago. Job I excel in, boss who became mentor, and live-in girlfriend who sees me for who I am and daily helps build me into a better man. This time I am determined to do it right. After talking to our pastor, my fiance and I have decided that we will abstain from sex until our wedding night. She has decided she would like to get baptized at the next baptism service our church has planned. I have moved up in my company. And my day to day life is peaceful. My heart, my soul, my spirit, is at rest. It is such a different feeling that what I have been used to for the last five years. Or is it?
Five years ago, I was on a path. What the destination was, I may never know. God had a plan for me. He placed me where He wanted me, and lit my path. I decided to take a turn. Not just any turn, but a U-Turn that led me in the exact opposite direction. A turn that would add five years to my trip time. Now hear I am five years later, a completely different man. I cannot imagine the heartache my Heavenly Father endured after watching me run the other way, or the joy He felt when His prodigal son came home, with my tail between my legs. What I do know, is I am thankful for the second chance He has given me. And this time, whichever way my GPS leads me, I won't try to understand, or make the crooked path straight, but I will live out Proverbs 3:5,6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take."
