I’m glad that I don’t own the business that prints Triptik forms for the AAA Motor Club.
For the use of those highlighter-marked mini-maps has to have plummeted in recent years as more people purchased dashboard-mounted global positioning units.
You’ve seen them.
Perhaps you own one.
With these GPS (global positioning system) devices, paper maps aren’t necessary. You just plug in the address of where you’re headed and the small, electronic screen displays a digital map that you follow to your destination.
Some of the devices even talk to you about upcoming turns, time to arrival and offer restaurant listings along the way if desired.
I don’t have one.
And I haven’t needed one thus far.
Among my few really strong abilities is my knack for looking at a map one time on paper or on the computer monitor and having it photographically memorized.
If I were to get into some sort of delivery driving role, though, I’d benefit from one, I’m sure. There are times when a paper or Internet map just aren’t available and yet I still have to go to a certain address.
So why this topic today for a Morning Devotion?
The reading today in the One-Year Bible includes Psalm 143. In that psalm is my theme verse for the Morning Devotion ministry:
“Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You. Show me the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul” (verse 8).
I am continually asking God to show me the way I should go.
You know how it is.
The world offers so many paths that it claims are good and fruitful and enjoyable and popular and lucrative and ego-satisfying and control-freak-satisfying and etc., etc., etc..
When the endpoint of each path is not clearly visible — of course, Satan wouldn’t allow the truth to be shown to human senses — it’s easy to choose the path that seems the smoothest and swankiest now.
But the path God blesses is not the path that Satan embellishes.
I cannot know the path God wants me to take unless I’m placing my trust in the Word of God.
Hundreds of Bible characters trusted God’s leading as they lifted up their souls to Him and God DID show them the way that they should go.
Even when those paths were contrary to the paths of the worldly people around them.
They relied on the ultimate GPS — God’s positioning system.
I’m realizing with increasing measure how much more that I need to rely on this GPS.
So many key elements in my life are in transition now because of the economy and changing spiritual climate of our nation. There are SO many paths that lead from where I am standing.
I want to take the path that addresses my economic needs and social needs, yes. But even more importantly, I want to take the path that allows me to apply my call to ministry in one setting or another.
We live in a crazy time, that’s for sure.
If recent years have found you living in the same town, having the same job, attending the same church and living with the same people, please consider yourself very blessed. Your array of paths is much smaller than mine.
Even so, you still need the leading of the Word, the ultimate GPS, to choose the path of faith that most honors God and best prepares you for receiving His blessings.
Please read a meaningful portion of the Word each day, even if not in the morning.
Please be a faithful reader of the Morning Devotion in order to get a jumpstart on walking down that path.
No, I don’t have a highlighted Triptik map of faith that shows my every turn before I arrive in heaven. But I do have the Word to open each morning and, based on what I read, I can have confidence in knowing which turn to make at the decision intersections I encounter throughout the day.
You can have that confidence, too.
Just trust the ultimate GPS.
As always, I love you
Martin
