He Will Be Our Guide

For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end. Psalm 48: 14

Do you know where you are going? I have no sense of direction at all, and I have heard others say the same!  Our inner compasses must not be working properly!  I can’t tell you if I am heading north, south, east, or west. And even when I come out of a building, I have no idea which direction I came from. It can be disorienting and frustrating when I”m driving in unfamiliar places.

As much as I am grateful to have the GPS system, I’m often hesitant to use it because it hasn’t always taken us on the route we thought was best, or gotten us to the right location – especially on less used country roads or in small towns. Sometimes, I think I’ll just use the road signs and figure it out on my own, but that usually doesn’t happen as they’re even less dependable!

Yesterday morning, I had no choice. I had an appointment about 45 minutes away and after I started out on the highway, I ran into road construction and wasted 20 minutes drifting along with the traffic. I finally realized I was going to have to take an exit and go the back roads, or I was going to miss the appointment altogether!

I had no idea which direction to take so I had to call OnStar, and the destination was downloaded. I anxiously followed it, although I felt as though I was going blindly forward with no idea where I was. I had my doubts as to where it would take me and little faith that it would get me there on time. But gratefully, it came through and I was only a few minutes late.

While I was driving, I thought about how true it is that God is often referred to as our own GPS system. I realized that we sometimes think of Him in the same way as I do OnStar. We are so grateful He is there, but we don’t always think we need His direction and we put off going to Him longer than we should. We may trust in others around us to help or we may try to go our own way –  until we realize we aren’t going in the direction we need to go. And even after we have gone to Him for guidance, we wonder if we can really trust Him to take us where we really want to go. We’re a little fearful that He might have some “bumps” or “heart construction” along the way, or He might even take us in a totally different direction than we wanted to go. We like to be at the wheel and feel in control, but sometimes we just have to let it go!

We may have looked to Him for guidance in the past and have found that the road wasn’t always smooth or an easy path to travel, and we are hesitant to call on Him once again. But as our faith in Him has grown, hopefully, we have learned that we can trust in His love and care for us. We may not understand why He takes us on a particular path, but we can be confident that He will take us along the one we need to travel to be the individuals He would have us be. And we will find that the comfort, love, and peace He gives us along the way will make our journey much easier than it could have been without Him.

Just as we preprogrammed the GPS to get us to our destination, God has preprogramed us to seek Him. And just as we had to make the call for our direction and guidance, we have to call on our God. He waits for us to reach out to Him in love for counsel and guidance, and He gives us His manual, His Word, to help us find our way. He doesn’t want us wandering around aimlessly in life, lost, with no purpose or direction, but He wants us to trust Him to take us on the right course. He wants to lovingly direct and guide us through this life and into the next. He is our everlasting God and “He will be our guide, even to the end.”

Prayer

Dear Lord, how lost and disoriented we become without you. May we look to you always for guidance and direction to travel the roads you would have us go to reach our final destination with you. Amen