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I heard Marianne call from the bedroom, “Harold, come here. I can’t find my jewellery box!” We had just returned from a brief visit away from home, following our move half way across the country.

Our family moved to Port Alberni, Vancouver Island the summer of 1980, where I had accepted the call to be a pastor in the community. We put our home in Manitoba up for sale, and moved into the church manse next door to the church on a large, steep and wooded lot overlooking the harbour and pulp and paper mill. The highway in and out of town turned into a main street at the bottom of the church property. 

By late summer we had settled into the house that was to be our home for several years, and the family next door had two girls about the same age which helped greatly in easing some of the loss they felt.

Marianne and I had close friends who lived two hours drive away near the community of Mill Bay. Their proximity was as welcome to us as Carolyn and Kathy were to Christine and Heather—friendly faces in a place far from what used to be home. One sunny week end we decided to visit our friends. We had acquired a box of pears from the trees of a generous donor and would finish the canning process upon our return. The house was locked and we set out for a brief day and a half away from home.

The highway was bare, not a car was in sight and bright moonlight on fields of surrounding snow on this January night made for easy visibility—I hardly even needed headlights.I had been away for the better part of a week and was eager to get home. So I pressed on the accelerator and sped up to seventy miles an hour. It was just past ten o’clock and there were few other travelers on the road. When I left the airport in Regina, Saskatchewan, the temperature was close to thirty degrees below zero, but with no wind and a perfectly clear night, I had the highway to myself.

I turned off the Trans-Canada highway, route number one, and was headed north and east on Saskatchewan route ten toward Manitoba and my home in the town of Dauphin. I would get home somewhere around two AM. I turned on my radio and settled in for a long uneventful ride home.

After about half an hour the thought struck me, “what a waste of time listening to the radio.”

As a pastor, I would encourage my congregation in their relationship with God and here I was wasting time which might be usefully invested. Pleased with the thought, I turned off the radio and began a dialogue with The Lord. I imagined Jesus in the seat next to me and began talking. I cannot remember a thing I spoke, but I do remember saying out loud, “OK, now it’s your turn if you have anything you want to say to me. I am willing to listen.”

A few moments went by then as clear as can be, not audibly, but in my mind or spirit, I heard these words: “Slow down.”

I've just returned from four days on the road, traveling to various communities and speaking to Christian women's groups. Three of those engagements were in a large city that I'm not terribly familiar with. So I took the time before leaving to check on the internet for the locations of each event. Using an internet application I was even able to find out exactly how long it would take me to get from A to B. I printed out the directions and maps and felt well prepared. Just to be safe I also took our trusty GPS along.

For those who might not know, GPS stands for Global Positioning Satellite. It truly is an amazing little gadget. You type in the city and address and a screen lights up with a map and your position is monitored as you drive. Then a friendly voice tells you where to go and when to turn right or left. As I turned it on before leaving for a venue that was in the very heart of the city, I thought there would be no way I could get lost or confused. Famous last words!

You see the map and directions I had copied from the internet did not match with what my GPS was telling me. To make things worse I was heading into the downtown core at the height of the morning rush hour. The traffic was bumper to bumper. The radio had told me there was a city-wide teachers' convention on that morning so the traffic was expected to be even worse than usual. Great, I thought, and my information is contradictory.

As the lilting GPS voice (I call her Lucy) directed me to turn right, I glanced at the written directions I had printed out. Turning right did not make sense. I turned left and ended up where I did not want to be. Then I remembered my husband telling me about the training given pilots in the military. They are taught how to fly blind - literally. The cockpit is covered so they can't see a thing and have to rely entirely on their instruments to take off, fly and then land the aircraft. The number one rule is, believe what the instruments say. Don't rely on your own understanding.

So I turned left and found myself heading into what looked like a residential area. That made me nervous. But Lucy said turn left, so I did. Then left again, and suddenly I was at an intersection. Left one more time, and Lucy triumphantly announced I was "arriving at destination, on right." I looked up and sure enough, there was the hotel where the meeting was being held. Letting Lucy lead me had proven the best course. There was no need to worry.

Sometimes it doesn't seem to make sense to follow what God wants us to do. Logic can dictate a different course of action and we often worry. But God's ways are higher than ours. Like Lucy, He is able to see from a clear vantage point. He knows the beginning and the end and the winding route in between. He knows exactly the best route for each one of us.

Proverbs 3:5&6 says it best - "Trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."

God will always get us to where we need to be. No need to worry.

Marcia Laycock is a pastor's wife and freelance writer living in Alberta Canada. Her devotional book, The Spur of the Moment has been endorsed by Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and others. To order, and to view more of Marcia's writing, see her web site - www.vinemarc.com

Copyright Marcia Lee Laycock, 2007