GOD'S GPS UNIT

Ecclesiastes 10:1-12:14; 2 Corinthians 8:1-15; Psalm 49:1-20; Proverbs 22:20-21

“As dead flies cause even a bottle of perfume to stink, so a little foolishness spoils great wisdom and honor…. A quiet spirit can overcome even great mistakes…. Laziness lets the roof leak, and soon the rafters begin to rot…. If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done…. Don’t let the excitement of your youth cause you to forget your Creator…. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad. ”

“Here is my advice: It would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago…. Now you should finish what you started.”

“But as for me, God will redeem my life. He will snatch me from the power of the grave.”

Over the years, I have been the recipient of some very good advice. Much of it, to be honest, was thrust on me, even though I did not ask for it. That’s usually the toughest, and also the most important, advice to consider, in my experience. There have been other times when I actively sought out wisdom from trusted friends or mentors. That’s not as easy to do as it sounds, either. It can be a pretty humbling experience, in fact. Still, it is usually worth the effort, even if I do not always follow the counsel given. All of this kind of came to a head as I was reading today’s Scriptures. They led to an obvious but nonetheless somewhat distressing conclusion: I’m just not smart enough to navigate the path of life on my own. I know. I’ve tried, and I routinely get bogged down with detours, rough spots in the road and flat out misdirection. What starts out as a simple passage from Point A to Point B frequently becomes a daunting quest just to find a landmark or mileage marker to reset my present location. I lose track of where I’m going because I don’t know where I am. Many times, I’ve thought to myself, “This shouldn’t be so hard.” Sometimes, I flat give up and just sit beside the road until some understanding soul is kind enough to offer help. That can be a very long wait, though, especially if I’m too proud to send up a flare.

God does not want any of us to be lost. That’s why He offers his Holy Spirit as a Counselor, Guide and Friend. To put it another way, the Holy Spirit is the Creator’s own little GPS unit, offered to each of us if we will just go to the trouble of turning it on and following the advice we are given. But for most of us, getting to the point where we are ready to ask for directions is the most difficult part of the trip. Nor is this an exclusively male predisposition. I’ve know both men and women to go way out of their way, sometimes even into quite dangerous territory, to avoid having to admit they need advice. They don’t intend to be “bad.” They just get lost. The lines of ethics, of right and wrong, somehow get confused in their minds and blur together. They lose their bearings. But then, they bullheadedly forge ahead into the very center of sin and depravity, just because they were too proud to ask directions before they got completely turned around. Even now, some reading this are too proud to admit they have no idea how they got where they are and less of an idea of how to get home.

Being proud and lost is its own special hell. Pride engenders a unique isolation that poisons everything around it. Beauty cannot be seen or appreciated. Joy is a long-abandoned dream. When love turns to self-loathing as we finally confront our inadequacies, worst of all, pride keeps all help at bay. It’s time for many of us to face the cold, hard truth. We simply cannot get there from here, at least, not on our own. We are past the point of being able to save ourselves. Nothing we do is going to repair the bridges we have burned or the relationships we have taken for granted. They have atrophied from nonuse. We need help. We need directions, a way out of the mess we are in. We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This is our chance to take Christ seriously: He says he’s standing at the door, knocking, willing to come in and get us reoriented and pointed in the right direction. Ask Him in; put Him to the test. He says He’ll stay with us always, even to the end of the age, if we’ll have Him. Jesus will walk right beside us, if we aren’t too proud to be with Him. He will do this just because He loves us in spite of ourselves and knows we need Him to help navigate life. It’s OK to ask the Holy Spirit for directions. He won’t laugh or take advantage of our weaknesses. He’ll steer us around them, in fact, if we follow His course. He’s just waiting to be asked.