We have a GPS.

I will admit that I resisted its purchase for sometime. I told Jan that he really didn’t need another woman in the front seat telling him where to go. 🙂

I finally gave in just before our big Western Adventure. We set it to speak in an Australian accent and named her Matilda Garmin Shervheim – “Tilly” for short.

Tilly has proven to be quite helpful in locating campgrounds, directing us through large cities, pointing us to the nearest gas station and finding a Sonic at 2:00 for Slushie cravings.

But recently we discovered a weakness in our newest toy: she’s only as good as the information in her data base.

As Jan and I traveled along around northeast Iowa on our adventure day attempting to find a farm, Tilly took us on a wild goose chase. The map in my hand said we should continue going north but Tilly insisted that we turn around and head east.

She was adamant that we were heading in the wrong direction.

We muted her so we didn’t have to continually hear, “Recalculating. Recalculating. Please drive the highlighted route.”

Silly Tilly.

It was quite frustrating since I knew that general direction we needed to go and the map agreed – but  Tilly was quite clear that we were all wrong.

Her database just didn’t contain all the information for the gravel roads and off-the-beaten track places our adventures often take us.

Finally after driving over an hour up bluffs and through valleys – in desperation – we called the guy we were looking for and he led us out of the mess we were in.

The same thing happened during our latest adventure. Tilly was worth her weight in gold as we traveled through St. Louis – but once we got off the pavement she got quite confused.

We discovered that we can only trust Tilly when she knows where she is leading us.

Otherwise – we might as well mute her because her advise is worthless.

And so it is in life.

There are people all around us sharing advise, telling us what to do, giving us directions.

But do they know where they are going?

What’s in their database?

The only one we can fully trust to lead us is the One who has our entire life mapped out. He is the one who knows the past, the present and the future.

His data is never flawed.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.”