Amelia

One of my coolest gifts this year was Amelia. No, Amelia is not a dog, a new daughter or an imaginary friend. It's my GPS that my wife gave me for my truck. (Not that I ever need directions or anything). To understand what a sacrifice my wife made in giving me Amelia (and to find out how she got her name) I'll give you a brief recount.

A couple of summers back, we borrowed a friends GPS on a trip to Virginia to see family. As with most, you could choose the kind of voice you wanted to hear as it gave you commands. We chose a British woman and decided to name her. The name we came up with was Amelia--in honor of one of the greatest female pilots in American history (at the time, I was driving a Honda Pilot. Catching the connection here?) Before that trip was over with, Amelia was on Lisa's last nerve. Her constant directions, instructions and corrections were just too much for Lisa, who usually prefers a quieter drive while on vacation.

Thus, the tremendous sacrifice she made by inviting "Amelia" into my truck on a more permanent basis.

I got to thinking about this GPS as I was driving to visitation for a funeral service at a local church last night, one that I wasn't familiar with the location. Because of traffic, I turned on a road just before the one Amelia had chosen. Amelia didn't like that and immediately announced, "Recalculating. Please make a U-turn as soon as it is safe." Fortunately, I knew where I was and eventually made it to my location.

But how many times do you and I choose to ignore God when He is offering us direction? He has a plan marked out for us (Jeremiah 29:11) but we choose to follow our on way (Proverbs 3:5-6). No matter how many times He gets it "right" we still decide that we somehow know far more than He does. We think we know the shortcuts--the way around the traffic jams of life--but we usually wind up with a bigger mess than we could have foreseen. The good thing about our "ignorance" is that God is much like Amelia...His grace allows U-turns.