Thirty four turns should have been my first clue. But I was inattentive. In fact, I did not even look at the instructions until I left the driveway...and by that time, it was too late. My fate had been sealed. But in the end, it worked, I just had to stay on task and I was grateful that it was not at night. But that is getting ahead in the story.

On a recent excursion into Virginia I had to try to figure out how to get home from Winchester. Do you use map quest? I always want to get home the fastest way. But the way the crow flies is not always the most updated roads with widths with tolerable margins. I opened the instructions and noted that thirty four turns did seem like a lot, but I was just starting out and determined to go that first .4 of a mile and then take a slight left. Yes it was the way to get home in six hours and forty nine minutes. But Andi and I saw things that even Lewis and Clark and other early pioneers going west had to have missed. County road 45 is the bomb! Now was that Maryland or was it Virginia or was it West Virginia? At certain points we seemed to pass freely between the states. We were in the boonies...which I am not entirely sure what that word means, but it is akin to being "out there". Oh sure, the last 164 miles from Washington, Pennsylvania was on I-70, but by that time we were numb with turns. We did not get to I-70 until instruction # 30. We were in our driveway with instruction #34.

So, in the middle of nowhere in unfamiliar turf, we had to trust the instructions. All we had to go on was the map quest turns...which included 364 feet on South Mechanic Street...somewhere, but I cannot remember where. We pushed back against thoughts of "Where in the world is this?" and "Are we going the right way?" by pressing down on the accelerator and following the instructions. In the middle of the haze, I thought of the Word of God.

The Bible is our road map for life. How it is belittled and badgered by an "enlightened" culture. Yet all of our "enlightened" living is utterly destroying us, individually and collectively. All of God's instructions are for our good. Yet many of God's instructions we follow when we cannot yet see the outcome. At some level, we have to make a choice. Shall we embrace what is revealed from our God in God's map quest? Shall we sustain our trust in the book in the face of skeptics and our own sensation that we are experiencing what we have never been a part of before? Do we keep going in confusion? What do we have to do to go on the dark?

We have the instructions. In the end, we'll get there. Though having passed through what we could not see and undergo what we could not entirely understand, it the Word of God that stands forever, which is such a stark contrast to our mortal flesh.

A God who cannot lie took up speech, as a concession to us, and disclosed Himself. He invites us to lay hold of what he has revealed and forge ahead, trusting him. It is the map. He is the cartographer. We do well to sustain our grip on what he has revealed.

So on we faithfully go, left, right, right, left... Knowing that every prescribed turn is for our good, even when we cannot see. He holds out our highest good in what he has revealed about himself and what he has called us to do.

So let's keep turning and follow the map wherever it leads. I eventually got home in the shortest amount of time. I left frustration and just began to enjoy the ride trusting in map quest. My faith was not misplaced. Neither is ours.

"All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:6-8

"Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Psalm 119:105