An Ode to U-Turns

I recently switched from an older model Blackberry to a Galaxy S4 Active cell phone. I was so excited that my new phone had an AT&T Navigator/GPS on it, because when I say I can get lost in a straight line, I'm saying that's the understatement of the year. 

I'm not talking about out of town. I'm talking about MY hometown. Where I've lived and still live, for the past 29 years. I'm talking about still not having the best concept of how to get from this person's house to this restaurant in the most time efficient way. I can GET there but it might take me 15 minutes longer than anyone else in my party, because they knew the cut-throughs and I had to go highway or main boulevard. 

I can even have fantastic, detailed directions that are way over and beyond for the average person. And I can guarantee you, at BEST, I will pass the house/location at least once before making it in the driveway/parking lot. At least. 

(Let's not even talk about how I went the wrong way out of my friend's neighborhood a few weeks ago and ended up on a street that made my mother say "OH MY" once she heard - a street that had gansta-like folks walking down a street littered with lowridin', beat up cars, in wife-beater tanks and saggy jeans, eyeing the confused blonde in the 4 door sedan like a giant Highlights magazine feature of "Which of these does not belong??")

I'm not even just talking about getting lost while driving. Oh no - I can get lost just as easily in person, too. Put me in a corn maze in October, and be prepared to pitch a tent and stay overnight. Tell me to go across the street and up the elevator to the 14th floor, and SOMETHING will happen along the way. 

So yeah, I was excited to have this new feature on my cell phone. I thought, problem solved. I will now be on time, or early, everywhere I go, and make it there on the first try. I can even give OTHER people directions!! Super ecstatic. 

Uh, no. It hasn't helped. If anything, it makes me more confused, because now I'm trying to read a map while driving. 

Sigh. 

I took the long way from Point A to Point B yesterday, by about 15 miles and 20 minutes, when I could have literally been there in about 4 1/2 minutes. 

Epic fail. 

I thought having directions would make everything easier. And it could, probably, if I was using the gps correctly, or maybe if I wanted to spring for the upgraded feature that costs so much $ per month. 

Until then, I'll just keep wingin' it and increasing my U-turn skills. 

It makes me think, though, how sometimes we forget the fact that we are totally lost and directionless without God's Word - our ultimate GPS system. We can have a copy of the Word and even read the Word, but unless we're applying it to our lives, it's as useless as me squinting at an upside down map while making a U turn in a crowded intersection (under a sign that bans U-turns. Not that that recently happened...)

Maps can be helpful, or useless. And while God's Word is never useless and never returns void, it won't give us the guidance and directions we so desperately need if we don't take the time to learn it, absorb it, and apply it. 

Hear me. This isn't just for those who are truly lost, those who haven't accepted Jesus as their Saviour. It applies to them, yes. Because they'll never find their way without Christ. 

But my point here goes for Believers, too. Christians. Those who claim to know Jesus and have a relationship with Him, but continue wandering around like they haven't a clue where they're supposed to go. They might know they're supposed to be elsewhere, they might realize they're on the wrong route, but they continue to go about as if they don't have the foggiest how to get to the right place. 

I've been there. What about you?

Here's a challenge for you today, fellow Believers - when was the last time you read your Bible? And I don't mean skimmed a Psalm on your way out the door in a rush, or read a quick verse in a devotional that encouraged you but remained surface level...I mean READ your Bible. For a period of time, maybe 15 minutes...at least? 

If you can't remember, it's probably time to sit down and read your Map for a bit.

Thankfully, God never bans U-turns. He always welcomes us back in the right direction. :)