Don't forget to use your GPS

Do you use a sat-nav in your car? I find them amazing. Even if I'm just driving in the Malaga area, and going to a part of town that I'm not familiar with, I love the security that comes from knowing that I'm on the right track and that my little GPS device will even warn me what lane to get into, so that I'm positioned well and prepared for the road that lies ahead. This morning, in my personal time with God, I was reflecting on the fact that walking by faith is rather like travelling with a GPS. Once you make a personal decision to invite God into your life, it's like buying a sat-nav and putting it into your car; you now have everything you need to keep your life on track and draw on all the wisdom you need for life's decisions - even in the challenging parts of the journey.

But having a GPS device in your car is no use at all if you simply leave it sitting in the glove compartment. You have to activate it - to switch it on and tune into the satellite - before it's able to give you any kind of direction for your journey. And it's the same with faith: being a Christian is like having the sat-nav and carrying it with you in your car. But "walking by faith and not by sight" (2 Cor 5: 7) is like switching on the GPS and listening to what God's Voice has to say about the direction your life should take.

This morning I was reading in Psalm 92 vs 5, where it says, "How great are your works, oh God. How profound are your thoughts." Sometimes we don't see God at work in our lives, because we haven't taken time to ask Him what He thinks about our life and the situations we face. As I thought back to November and December 2011, to those first difficult months of my Dad's critical illness and especially his time in the intensive care unit, I realised that the simple fact of being a committed Christian was not in itself enough to see me/us through those challenging times. I needed to to "tune in the GPS" and be in connection with God on a daily basis to find out what He had to say to us in the face of impossible medical odds and pessimistic predictions from the doctors involved. (Some of those "GPS readings" are still posted here on this blog. You can find them by looking down the list on the right until you come to the postings for the last months of 2011.) "How great are your works, oh God. How profound are your thoughts." Yes, if we want to see the works of God in our lives, in our families, in our church, I really believe that we need to be committed to tune in to the thoughts of God about those situations. How else can we know what to hang our faith on?

Thinking over the past two days about how God has fulfilled, and is still fulfilling, the promises He made about my Dad's life, gave me increased faith to trust Him for other promises that He has made to me personally over the years. I thought of a promise God gave me when a leader prayed for me back in 1985, and realised that it's only been partially fulfilled. I thought of some of the promises He gave me in 2007, when I was leaving South Africa and moving back to Europe. One of those is also in Psalm 92, where God promises that those who trust Him will continue to bear good fruit, even as they grow into old age.

GPS: God's Promises Stand. What promises are you believing God to fulfill in your own life? Even if it takes time, there is absolutely no doubt at all that God will do what He promised, as we continue to trust Him, "walking by faith and not by sight." It can be in our lives, just as it was for Joshua in the Old Testament, who told the people before he died, "You know deep in your heart that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not a single one has failed." (Josh 23:14)

GPS: God's Promises Stand. But if we don't know what those promises are, we don't know what to hold on to. If we really want to see the works of God, we need to be willing to commit enough time to hearing the thoughts of God. We need to be committed to activating our GPS and maintaining our daily connection with God, so that we have constant access to His wisdom and direction for our lives.