Unshackled Moments ~ July 12, 2017 ~ From Your Current Location

Imagine if you will that someone tells you of some amazing destination, perhaps a fabulous new restaurant or an outlet store with the best deals or wherever would make your ears perk up to hear of it. They give you the address, but you don't know how to get there. With me so far? What do you do? Ask for directions? Turn on the GPS on your phone and Google the address to have the route dictated to you step by step? Or do you simply pick a direction and head off feeling sure that sooner or later you'll manage to get where you want to go if you simply drive and try long enough?

But what if as the person tells you the address, they also say it's over in the same area as such and such? And what if you know where such and such is? Does that last option of trying to find it without help sound less ridiculous now? What if the address is in a part of the city or county that you have traveled regularly? The location is in a place where you know nearly every street and are very familiar with the area? Does that change your answer? Is it a lot more tempting to try to find the place without the GPS?

So, imagine that you give it a shot and try to find the place on your own. After who knows how much wasted time, wrong turns, and going down the same streets over and over as you keep managing to wind up on blocks you've already been, you finally give up. Frustrated and perhaps a bit embarrassed you finally admit that you don't know the area as well you thought or that what you do know may be more than a visitor but it is still insufficient to get you where you need to go and that just driving around hoping and refusing to quit trying isn't going to get you there any more than not trying would. So, maybe with some reluctance, you turn on the GPS and plug in the address. Your phone does its search and then, instead of simply giving directions, it pops up a question: Do you wish to start from your current location?

I hate that question. Seriously, if I could program my GPS not to ask that stupid question I would. No, I want to start back at where I was when I was told about this place. I'm pretty sure I can get back to that spot. Or no, wait, why don't you just start your directions from almost the point of arrival? I'll try to get a little further on my own first. Goodness, please don't give me such options. It's frustrating. If I have finally admitted I need help and don't know how to get there on my own, no matter how familiar I am with the area, then just tell me where to go. Of course from my current location. I don't want to travel another single inch in the wrong direction, thank you very much.

But whether this foolishness sounds all too familiar or you're quick to turn on GPS if there's any question or doubt that you know where to go, we are all inclined to make this kind of mistake and answer the current location question wrong when we finally surrender, at least spiritually. If GOD can stand for Good Orderly Direction, then GPS can stand for God's Positioning Spirit. The Spirit tells us where to go and how to get there and gives us everything we need to be able to make the trip. The trip to where? To the place where life is worth living and we have peace and joy and love and purpose and freedom from the things that have been causing us misery, suffering and hopelessness. Into that wonderful place we've heard tell of, called the will of God. The down side of this place, at least to our self-centered, self-sufficient  egos, is that, no matter how long you've been on the journey, no matter how well you know the area, you can't get there on your own.

We forget that sometimes. We want to be able to do it ourselves. We want to be able to take detours and little excursions from the path. We begin feeling confident we know where the Spirit is leading us and stop listening. Thanks for all you've done so far, for your guidance and help, but I can take it from here. And the next thing we know, we've messed up, gotten lost or turned around and are going the wrong direction. We're hopeless to get to the place of freedom on our own. So, with some newfound humility, we turn back to God and ask for help. We turn on our GPS, and God doesn't ask that stupid question the phone does. Jesus always meets us where we are and says let's go from here.

But all too often, even as we claim to surrender and agree to allow the Spirit to guide us, we balk. We have it all wrong. Something in us just can't accept the grace to start from our current location. We either beat ourselves up, act like we've lost and forfeited everything and need to go back to the very beginning or we feel we need to fix some of the mess we've made first. Just let me get a little better, get a little closer to the will of God and freedom on my own and then I'll surrender complete control.

No. That's not it. No matter where you're at today, if you're on the road you're supposed to be on and doing the things the Spirit wants and have been for ages or you've fallen out of the will of God, returned control of your life to that old slave master of self and have had a wreck, or at least some spiritual car trouble or a flat or something serious enough to get your attention back on the need to get some help, God's guidance, His positioning Spirit is always going to lead you from where you are. And no matter how much you might have gotten off track, you don't have to backtrack and go out of the way to start over, and you don't have to get any better, any closer to where you need to be, get yourself unstuck or unlost on your own, in fact it's a really bad idea to try. Surrender today, no matter how well or poorly you've surrendered before this moment, and follow the guidance of the Spirit from your current location, and then, no matter where you are or where you've been  you'll get where you need to go.

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