I love my GPS. I affectionately call her “Genevieve” – because naming your GPS is becoming more and more trendy (and I gave her a British accent). Our current dash-mount GPS is the second we’ve owned as a family and I realized this week how much I rely on ‘her’.
On Monday we drove to Pittsburgh for a hospital visit in the early afternoon. I had been to this hospital before on a few occasions (using the GPS each time), but I still punched in the location to allow Genevieve to guide my way yet again even knowing I could have probably made it there on my own without her help.
After my visit, Jess had requested that we stop at her favorite make-up store in Pittsburgh, so with a few touches of the magical GPS, we were on our way. We’d been to this store before, but never from our current location – neither of us even knew if it was North of where we were or South, East, or even West – but Genevieve pointed the way and we were rocking. We arrived at the store, enjoyed an afternoon in the Shadyside Shopping District and then made dinner plans with friends. Another few touches on the GPS and we were on our way to their apartment on the other side of the city.
It was while we were driving through the city that I realized just how reliant I am on this wonderful piece of technology. There we were driving through downtown Pittsburgh in the 5 o’clock traffic relying COMPLETELY on Genevieve to navigate me through the narrow streets that I had no understanding of. That’s when the GPS started misbehaving. The buildings, you see, block the GPS signal from the satellite to our minivan – they distort the signal in such a way that Genevieve began telling me to make u-turns and turn here or there – but thankfully I had taken a look at the GPS map on-screen before these mishaps – and I knew my route was to stay on the current street until I got out of the city and onto the bridge. So I stayed the course, kept ignoring Genevieve’s insistence to GO THE OTHER WAY and we made it. As soon as we were away from Pittsburgh’s skyscrapers, Genevieve re-synced with her space-traveling counterpart and we were ‘back on course’.
There’s a lot of Spiritual-application in this story – and the obvious thing to do is to point out all the ways this plays out in my walk with Christ. I’m thankful that my Lord doesn’t get “out of sync” when directing my path. I’m grateful for 100% reliance in God who promises to never leave me (Heb. 13:5).
I’m not content with Genevieve 2.0 (my second in-dash GPS). There is already better technology available than the model we currently have. Eventually we’ll upgrade. I’m glad to know that the same is NOT true with our God. I take comfort in knowing that I serve the same God that allowed the children of Israel to walk along dry-ground between the parted Red Sea. I’m glad to know that my God is the same God that sent fire from heaven and consumed Elijah’s altar in front of the prophets of Baal. God directed Moses. God directed Elijah. God directs me. Same God. No upgrades. No new-model. No change.
