life lessons learned from a navigation device

Sometimes it can hardly be helped. After all, we're only human. You see, I have questioned God before. Wondered about the choices He makes and about the things He allows to happen. Perhaps you have, too. But today, as I was driving our Many Small Children all over tarnation*, I had an epiphany.

*on errands, downtown to Children' Hospital to get Stellan's Holter, to the Cimmunity Community Center, to a homeowner's house to pick up a check for my husband, and home again

And, although I already knew this, today's epiphany hit me in a fresh way:

It is not our place to question God.

And, ironically enough, it was the navigation device in our car that helped remind me of that truth.

Let me back up. First, back to me cruising around earlier with our MSC.

As I drove along, a Veggie Tales soundtrack piping out of the speakers, children's lips sucking suckers (we'd stopped at the bank and, yes, I let them have some to keep them quiet bless them with a special treat), I flipped on the navigation dealy built into our dash since I was headed into a part of town I don't know very well.

Everything was going swimmingly at first; I followed, without questioning, the commands that the faceless female voice gave me, which cut in and interrupted Oh, Where Is My Hairbrush every few minutes. "Turn right on East Fourty Fourth Street." And then, "Go two miles ahead." And "Stay left." The navigation device and I were in sync. Just like God and I sometimes are.

But then, it happened. I prepared to exit off onto a rather new highway, which was apparently built after our navigation device was was. According to the navigation map, I was headed straight for an abandoned field near a hill. "You are off specific route." Of course, I knew better than our navigation device, and so I plowed on, not heeding the faceless woman's implied command.

"You are off specified route!" She tried again.

Refusing to listen, I barreled onto the highway, as the image of a little triangle, denoting our vehicle, careened out over a field of green on the navigation screen. The navigation gal truly thought I had lost my marbles. Had she these words in her vocabulary, I'm fairly certain she would have screamed: "I told you that you are off the specified route, you ninny!!! You are headed straight for a steep hill!! Turn back now or you will surely perish!! Heed my words, I know what I am talking about! I am the navigation device, for pete's sake! For the love of all that is pure and holy, turn back now!!!!!!!"

But I didn't turn back. Because, even though many times the navigation device and I are in sync, it is only a computer. I, on the other hand, am a human with a capable, rational, problem solving brain. The navigation device is not. When push comes to shove, it is my way or, pardon the pun, the highway.

In these situations, it is I who always knows best. I knew there was a safe, new highway for us to drive on today. The faceless lady could not see that highway, and she was desperate in her attempts to get me to abandon ship. I refused. You see, it is not her place to question me. How can she? She's just a voice in a computer. She may have a good grasp on things in her little corner of the world, but she does not have the big picture.

And as I drove today, I could not help but realize that the experience I had with my navigation device was a microcosm of how it is with God. In this epiphany-induced analogy, we are the faceless ladies. We have information about a limited portion of life, and we often do very well managing our own way. God gives us the freedom to make our own choices that are within His will for our lives. Remember my post on free will? God lets us blaze our own trails when it comes to what we do with our lives.

But you see, sometimes, God also makes choices for us. Choices that even our free will cannot find a way around. And it is in those moments that, like it or not, it is not our place to question God.

It is, then and there, only time to trust God. Implicitly. To try to drive the point home, let me explain it this way:

It's no secret that my husband and I desperately wanted Stellan to be healed, completely healed, when I was pregnant with him. We hoped and prayed that Stellan's heart would outgrow its capacity for SVT by the time he was born. In fact, when Stellan looked perfect on his birth day, and for four months beyond that, we thought we were on the same page as God.

But while we had closed that book in our lives, that SVT book, God had not. He had merely finished a chapter and we, being the finite humans we are, could not see that. So when Stellan got sick again when he was four months old, it would have been very easy for me to pitch a tantrum. Tossing my toys around the room, I could have shaken my fists at God, yelling at Him that He was "Off the specified route."

But God was not off the specified route when it came to Stellan. You see, God can see a highway that has been built in a field. And I can only see the field. I am human, finite. God is omniscient, all-knowing. Just as it is not faceless lady's place to question me, so is it not my place to question God. I only need trust that He has the most updated version of my life's navigation device. My version? It's pretty rusty and outdated. Sure, it gets me by day to day, but the real knowledge about what is best for me in my life comes from God, the one who created navigation devices in the first place.

Life lessons learned from a navigation device. Who knew!?

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9