By Amy Butler
I have a very complicated relationship with the GPS satellite navigation system in my car.
On the one hand, I find that the GPS is becoming more and more critical to my sanity, if not my very existence. In the course of daily life and work it seems I am always in need of directions. And, it was with extreme glee that I finally threw away all of the dog-eared map books that have been my constant companions since I first moved to the big city.
Sometimes I think my GPS is like magic. No more flipping through maps only to find that the page you need is the one the kids tore out to use that time in the car when you told them to spit out their gum. Nope, you just put in an address and you get instant directions.
And that’s where things get complicated, because, on the other hand, I am honestly not fully convinced that my GPS always knows the right way to go.
Sometimes — well, very often, in fact — it will suggest the most direct course to my chosen destination and I know — I just know — that it’s wrong.
I don’t mean “know” in an objective-facts kind of way, of course. I mean “know” in the way that I-kind-of-have-a-vague-feeling-that-I know-another-way-that-might-be-better.
Usually it is just about when the GPS announces, “RECALCULATING” that I suddenly realize that the way I thought I knew isn’t the right way after all, that I am more lost and late than I was before, and that I am now doubly dependent on my GPS to get me to my destination, and fast.
It’s about then that I give in and just go where the GPS tells me to go.
Living through this very interaction with my GPS while running late to meet some friends at a new restaurant, I started to think about the practice during Lent of creating space in life to more intentionally listen for God’s voice.
Am I really listening?
I realized that a lot of times my listening for God’s voice is quite like the way in which I listen to my GPS.
That is, I am really glad to have God in my life. I’m so grateful for an awareness of the divine in the world around me and for relationship with Jesus Christ that moors my life to God’s best hopes and plans for me and for this world. I can’t imagine life without the touchstone of my faith.
On the other hand, I confess there are times I am honestly not fully convinced that God is always pointing me in the right direction.
I mean, I know God sees the big picture and knows more than I do, but there are times when I really feel that divine direction, however it comes, just is not really the way I want to go. Truly, there are many times in which I am fairly certain I know a better way.
And then, of course, there are the times I just can’t see the next way to go … when the satellite connections are down or the new course doesn’t come to light fast enough or I just can’t hear anything at all.
When I get stuck in the rut of trying things my way for long enough I finally surrender in utter frustration, I am left with the option of trusting God, even when I can’t quite see the entire map and sometimes, frankly, don’t even know my destination.
I hate to say it, but it’s a lot like my experience with the GPS. I start trusting God only when nothing I’ve tried on my own seems to be getting me anywhere fast.
I wonder if part of the mindfulness of Lent might be an invitation to give in a little sooner. What if, for a Lenten practice, I made peace with my GPS and just went where it told me to go? If I practiced with the GPS, then maybe I could — slowly — learn to do that more with God’s voice directing my life.
I’m off to a meeting now. I just wrote down the address so I could put it into my GPS. Time to go practice.