Faith

Happy Friday Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you having a great day on this beautiful Friday morning!

I think I may have written a message similar to this one a couple of years ago. I am not sure however I am certain of the lesson I learned, the conviction in my spirit to share it with you and so here I am! :)

A couple of days ago I was in Seattle and I had a morning appointment. I typed the address into Google Maps and I was off. Initially the directions started off exactly as I expected. Then suddenly the little voice in my ear piece was telling me to go a direction I didn't think was right. At first I thought I will just keep going the direction I thought was right and I would let Google Maps "redirect." Not like I haven't screwed up before and heard, "redirecting."

All at once the 405 was coming to a complete standstill. There was just enough time for me to listen to the little voice in my ear telling me to exit so I did...with great anxiety! Thoughts raced through my head - "this can't be right"; "I am going to be late"; "where am I going?" Nothing about the instructions in my ear looked or felt right. It was raining, there was fog/clouds, visibility was very, very low and now the little voice in my ear was taking me to parts of Seattle I had never been. Everything I knew told me this was wrong and yet there was something inside of me that told me to listen to Google Maps on this one. I felt like I was going the completely wrong direction, the road was twisting and turning, there was a lot of traffic...the doubts, the worries, persisted. There were also points through the drive where the rain lightened, the fog/clouds lifted and I could clearly see big, majestic pine trees...I recognized & appreciated their beauty - at these moments, the moments when I just enjoyed the journey, the doubts & worries dissipated. Soon enough though the little voices in my head came at me again - "this can't be right!"; "this is going to be all wrong and then you are going to have to call the elderly gentleman who is driving an hour and a half from the other direction to meet you to tell him you are going to be late...if you can make it at all!"; "you are going to look like a fool on this one!"

About 40 - 45 minutes into it everything finally made sense. While I didn't know how exactly I had gotten to where I was I now knew I was on the right path...I saw a familiar sign leading to a familiar road. Not only did I make it to my appointment, I was 10 minutes early.

About half way through my drive I became acutely aware of the symbolism between this drive, my faith in Google Maps, and our personal life journey's - our faith in God, or the lack thereof. I thought about how we cannot see where we are going, things don't make sense to us, how there is worry and fear in letting go of what we think we know and trusting someone or something who might see what we cannot see, know what we cannot know. At that point I knew this was going to be this weeks Happy Friday - I just didn't know if it was going to be a statement about faith or some rant about how stupid Google Maps really is! :)

The truth is Friends, we all do have faith...even those who claim not to be people of faith. The real question is what are we putting our faith in, where will we place our faith? I will stay with driving and instructions to illustrate the point. I have a friend, I love him dearly, who thinks MapQuest, Google Maps, etc. are the dumbest things ever. He swears they don't work. He will get the instructions, start to follow them, be certain that where the directions are telling him to go are wrong, do his own thing and then end up lost. He then says, "see, these things don't work!" He places his faith in his knowledge, his wisdom, his understanding and he ends up lost. The fact is, just like me on my drive in Seattle, he has no idea how to get where he wants to go.

Does all of this sound familiar to you at all? Sadly, the consequences of doing this with our lives are far greater than being lost on a road or being late to an appointment. Actually, when we do this with our lives we get lost on the road of life and may miss - there is no late on this one! - the greatest appointment of all. So the question this morning is where are you going to place your faith? Are you going to place it in yourself - your knowledge, your wisdom, your understanding? Are you going to place it in the world - other people's knowledge, wisdom & understanding? Are you going to place it in the all knowing God, the creator of everything, the One who created you on purpose for a purpose? Let's just be clear on one thing - it is not a question of faith. It is strictly a question - a question we must answer each and every day by the way...hopefully early in the day! :) - of where we will place our faith.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend and please cherish your precious families.

Kev