Will your GPS will get you “there”?

I know this has become a common metaphor in recent years, but I just wanted to put my own version of it out there. Most of us use smart phones (or even smart cars) for navigating precisely to where we want to go. We set the destination on our GPS and then, based on current driving conditions and other prevailing factors, we receive very specific directions which guide us to our “final” destination, usually in the shortest possible amount of time.

From a spiritual standpoint, many of us would say that our destination should be set for “Heaven”. On the road to Heaven, we often stray from the route that is deemed “best” for us. We do this for many reasons: slow traffic, accidents, boring scenery, high stress, etc. Fortunately, the GPS (God) always tries to keep us on the correct road. If we get too far away from the original path, He gives us an alternate route that will ultimately bring us back to the correct path. It’s all good. As long as we have the right place set as our final destination, we will eventually get there.

Be careful, though, when you input your target destination, especially if that target is Heaven. Otherwise, you could end up in a place you did not intend to go. Worse yet you could drive into a very bad neighborhood; one that may be, literally, impossible to escape.

As an example, let us say you live somewhere in the United States and you want to go to Paris, France…you know, the “City of Lights”, the “Fashion Capital”, “La Dame De Fer” (The Iron Lady..meaning, the Eiffel Tower… not Margaret Thatcher). You need to be very specific and enter “Paris, France” since this great city lies way outside of the U.S., on the other side of an immense body of water. You may even want to pinpoint a favorite place in Paris such as the Champs Elysees, Notre Dame Cathedral, or the famous Louvre Museum. Make sure to enter that information as well. In addition, you’ll need a very specialized method of transportation such as an airplane or a cruise ship since neither car, nor truck, nor even train can adequately transport you to that wonderful city across the sea.

If you simply enter “Paris” into your GPS you could very well end up in Paris, Texas. Note: this is not meant in any way to slight Paris, Texas. It’s probably a decent city and you may have fully intended to go there, but in most cases…I’m guessing…not. Anyway, the same could be true if you were trying to navigate your way to Heaven. If I wanted to be sure I was going to the right “Heaven” I would start from where I currently live and get directions to “The One True God” and then choose the “Jesus” route. This would give me the optimal–actually the only–route and the perfect vehicle (The Bible, perhaps?) to safely “deliver me”, so to speak, to my desired final destination.

Let me know your view about this last bit, whether you a) are perfectly in synch, b) are diametrically opposed, c) are somewhere in between, d) use a completely different type of GPS, or e) don’t believe in using a GPS at all.