Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Trust the Map

Sunday afternoon we left for Denver from Odessa.  My phone mapped out a pretty good route that looked like we could make it in about 12 hours of driving.  The map routed us through roads and country that we had never been through before.  Muleshoe, Needmore, and Plains were just a few of the "big cities" that we were going to be headed through for the first time.  Most of the driving in West Texas is straight for as far as the eye can see.  My expectations were for straight roads and cruise control until we hit the more hilly terrain of New Mexico and Colorado.  This explains why when we started making several curves and turns on the flat plains of Texas I began to express my displeasure to Marci.  The map was showing turns and curves but all I could see out the window was flat land as far as the eye could see.  "The shortest distance between to points is a straight line and we are turning back and forth when we should be going straight!"

Just as my frustration and wonder were beginning to build we saw a sign that said sharp curve ahead.  We turned a corner and then looked down off into Caprock Canyon.


I turned to Marci and said, "oh, that's why we were making all those turns."  The turns we were making that seemed pointless were actually leading us to the safest way to make the descent into the valley below.  I didn't know the terrain and my two dimensional map wasn't explaining the danger that was ahead.

I learned several lessons Sunday evening that I thought I knew already but came to know in a new way.

Two Dimensional Vision--Looking at things in 2-d mode doesn't show the whole picture.  If I would have taken the time to analyze what I was looking at from a different perspective it would have made more sense.  We do the same thing in the Christian life when we look at things from a fleshly perspective and fail to stop and think how things might look from an eternal perspective.

Trust the Map-- Curves and difficulties might actually be leading us to a safer route.  Our map and guide is the word of God which Jesus himself described as the narrow way.  We might think there is another way that looks easier or better.  Trusting Him enough to completely follow his teachings will guide us safely to our final destination.

Think about it...

Can you think of a time in your life when you learned to trust the map?

What can we do in the Christian life in order to take an eternal perspective as opposed to looking at things from an earthly view?


1 comment:

  1. This is definitely a hard thing to do! I remember someone we both know well talking about how he would look over his history and how some of the outcomes of his decisions, circumstances, and things that would seem like chance encounters ended up leading him to a place where he needed to be. Taking a view that God has a plan gives importance to what would otherwise seem a string of random events...including today.

    Thanks, Kevin!

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