Several churches located near my home have displays/signs on their property showing things like worship times, and potentially the topic for the sermon on Sunday. Recently I saw the following sign:
The Bible is God’s GPS
I have to wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. Think about how a GPS works, and how you use one. A GPS consistently gives out clear and concise directions on where to go, “Turn RIGHT in 100 feet onto Main St”. If you make a mistake it chimes in “Recalculating”, then gives you new directions. We often follow a GPS blindly as can be seen in this article in the New York Times from a few years ago. There were two separate incidents, less than a year apart, where the driver followed the GPS directions and turned onto railroad tracks.
Our walk with God, and communication from Him via the Bible, is NOT a passive exercise. The Bible is more like a paper road map.
OK, but what does that mean? I’d like to point out something I read a few years ago in David Allen’s book Ready For Anything.
“A map is not functional until you know where you are on it.”
So where is the Red Dot saying “You are HERE” on this road map? The present moment is that Red Dot. I don’t mean a passive present moment, but rather one where you are engaged and truly experiencing the present moment.
Having difficulty finding the “Red Dot” in your life? I would suggest that you do what I call an “instant meditation”. It involves evaluating your current “spiritual posture”, and inviting the God of your understanding into the present moment.
Spiritual Posture
- Where are my feet? What are the physical sensations that I am experiencing? Where am I physically? Looking at potentially several different on/off states like hot/cold, pleasant/unpleasant, relaxed/agitated, etc.
- Where is my heart? What emotion(s) am I sensing, label it, and locate it in your body. The 7 base emotions are: sad, mad, glad, lonely, embarassed, guilty. If it is something else I would suggest that you are experiencing an emotion COUPLED with a judgement about something. For instance, jealousy could be anger mixed with the judgment that my spouse SHOULD be faithful.
- Where is my head? What am I thinking about? What judgments are going on in my thoughts and speech? Am I asking many “WHY” questions, or am I getting trapped in “IF ONLY” or “SHOULD” statements?
Inviting God into the present moment
- Ask God into the present moment. I mean the God of your understanding, and not anyone elses. This could be God, Jesus, Buddha, Tao, Higher Power, Love, Infinite Wisdom, or any other personal conception. Ask that He (She, It, They, other) give you the ability to truly experience the present moment. Feel the words vibrate in your vocal chords and pass over your lips as breath. Feel the vibration of your body. Feel your emotions, label them, and locate them in your body. Ask to let go of judgment about these things, and to just experience them.
Now that you know where you are on the map, further work is necessary.
You need to study the map, and be able to translate the abstract notation of a map into what it looks like in reality. A topological map shows altitude as concentric lines where each line is X amount of difference in elevation. Seeing lines on a map stacked closely together is different than looking at an almost vertical hill that you know you need to climb. The Bible is a wonderful map, but it can be abstract at times. Have an understanding of it, read it, interpret it, talk with others about it, and see how it relates to your current life situation.
You need to have a destination in mind, and track your progress towards your goal vs. where you actually are. This is not meant as a means to beat yourself up, but rather as a means of course correction. I’ve heard an anecdote that during the Apollo missions they were “off course” more than 90% of the time. By this I mean that they were not perfectly oriented in the direction where they wanted to go (the moon), but rather were slightly askew. They would correct their course, and then they would be slightly off course in the other direction.
Let go of the drive for perfection, to be perfectly aligned with your destination. Instead be aware of your location, your desired destination, and what, if any, correction(s) need to be made. Then you have to do them.
The Bible is God’s roadmap. It is up to us to study and use it wisely.
Bill Riedy
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