Do You Really Know Where You Are Going? …Hello weekend readers. I suspect some of you are taking vacation, getting away for just a day, or doing something outside of being home! This got me thinking about directions, sorry it may seem silly but hear me out.

For instance, this past week I’ve had three folks come down to the campground booth trying to find a specific location. One was actually here in the campground but they kept trying to find #18 at Abiquiu Lake—the campground name is Riana! They were delighted to have found us in the booth and ready to get them into their site. Two of the other inquiries were about local B&B and a place called Enchanted Retreat on the Chama River. The B&B was 40 miles away from us in the little town of Cuba, NM; the retreat center was a total bust as there are NO retreat centers on the raging Chama River! After some sleuthing, we realized what they were looking for was the Cañones River Retreat in Antonito, Colorado!

With each person we had a good laugh, they were grateful we could help them and they all admitted that “trying to get where you are going isn’t easy.” We agreed. When you are in mountainous areas, your GPS turns into a trickster, and maps can be just as tough because a lot of folks have older ones, and not all places are on a map! Even Lady Google can’t reign in the winds and mountains for our devices!

Last night I was watching a PBS program on the ancient sailors, their fears, their maps, and the excursions they took in difficult waters with not-so-good vessels. The program said that when ancient sailors sketched maps of the oceans, they also made it distinctly known about their fears. They would even mark them on their maps.  Those cartographers, willing to be on the vast unexplored waters, wrote words like “Here be dragons”— “Here be demons”— “Here be sirens” and so forth. Some of the ancient maps were shown in the program and many words had a cross & skull-bone next to their writings. They wanted others to know what could happen in uncharted waters.

So, I want to ask you, if there was a map drawn of your world, what would we read from your encounters? I know a few of mine, “we’re lost” — “I just don’t know”— “this is not going well!” The PBS program spoke of Sir John Franklin, a master mariner in the days of King Henry V. The king and many others warned him of places to stay away from, but Franklin had a different point of view. He was a man of faith in God so, for him dragons, demons, sirens, etc., would never match the strength of God. In fact, they showed his maps that had those fears from previous explorers. That didn’t faze Franklin one bit; instead, he had put his pen’s slash through those words and in their place wrote in very bold letters, “Here is God.”

From the Old Testament to the New Testament, God reminds us that we can never go where God is not! I love Joshua’s powerful words from 1:9 (Voice) “This is My command: be strong and courageous. Never be afraid or discouraged because I am your God, the Eternal One, and I will remain with you wherever you go.”

In Matthew’s Gospel, 28:20 (CEV), Jesus reminds us of this precious never-ending-security: “…teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.” Remember the Hebrew name of Jesus? It is Immanuel which means, “God IS with us!” No limits, no stepping away—just with us ALWAYS and isn’t that just what we need? Let’s face it, the roads we take in this life can truly be hard to navigate and I’m not talking about a GPS, map, or Google’s directions! Traversing through a society that wants to pull us away from God will, no doubt, have us writing our fears of “dragons and demons.” This isn’t the life God wants for us.

We can put our faith in many things that take us nowhere. I suggest we all memorize and remember the words of Sir John Franklin, “Here IS God”—always and forever. God’s GPS never fails, God’s maps are always perfect, and they always get us to the right place, AMEN.