March 17, 2015

God’s GPS

A compilation

Audio length: 10:46
Download Audio (9.8MB)

Without a doubt the latest technological developments help us understand a bit more about God and how He manages His affairs from the heavenly spheres. An illustration of prayer is the cell phone, used to immediately communicate with someone on the other side of the world. The computer is capable of storing every bit of information needed by a company, right down to its smallest details. This helps us understand how God knows us so well that the Bible says that even our very hairs are numbered.¹

One of the miracles in the Bible that has always caught my attention is the one in Matthew 17:27, where Jesus tells Peter to catch a fish and take out of its mouth a coin needed to pay a Roman tax. How did Jesus know exactly which would be the right fish to have the coin?

Another similar miracle occurs when He tells His disciples to go to a neighboring town to find the donkey that He would ride on the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.² I wonder, did Jesus have a super-sophisticated and precise GPS to know where and when they would find the donkey?

I have often seen God’s GPS at work in my life. How many times has He guided me to find something that I lost, or to meet a certain person, or to find a needed place? And many times it is not only the right place, but also the precise moment.

Recently I received a real surprise. My wife and I had prayed to find a specialized mechanic who could do some repairs on the motor of our camper that we use on our missionary trips. Not having found anyone yet, we began our trip confident that everything would work out all right.

After a few days of traveling through the little coastal towns, I unexpectedly felt an impulse to drive down a certain street without really understanding why. There was no sign that had caught our attention, so we followed the street to the end, when suddenly a man came out to meet us and said, “You came here because of the GPS, right? The GPS brought you here.” Totally taken aback, we asked him what he meant.

He went on to explain that he has a mechanic who specializes in motor homes. Recently a man who is traveling the world had some work done there and had been so satisfied that he dedicated an entire page of his blog to them. On his website he put the GPS point so that anyone traveling in a motor home would be able to find them.

The funny thing is that our camper does not have GPS. We had been led to the exact location with God’s GPS, and at the perfect moment, as our motor really could not have gone further without the needed repairs.

A few days later, with our newly repaired motor, we were off again, but not without praying first—asking the Lord for His blessing and divine guidance. “Your ears will hear a word behind you, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right or to the left.”³—Carlos Campos

I can save you so much time when you receive My guidance daily. I can whisper instruction in your ear as you move along, so that you do a good and proper job. I can lead you so you don’t botch things up and have to go back and do it over or undo a mess. I can lead you of My Spirit so you do your work with excellence and not haphazardly. When you’re working in the Spirit, in communication with Me, you reap fruit that remains.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

God has filled life full of puzzles, problems, mysteries, and suspense to challenge our intellect, our faith, and our trust in Him as we set out to try to find the answers.

In trying to show us His will, God sometimes sets a mystifying puzzle before us. He sometimes speaks in riddles and mysteries that are hard to understand in order to get us to think and pray, but He almost always gives us a starting clue. Then He leads us on step by step. We never know what’s going to happen until we take the next step.

He likes us to seek His answers, because this causes us to exercise our faith in Him and His Word and His divine guidance and magnanimity, His parental love. It shows we trust in Him when we obey Him, even if we don’t know what’s at the end of the road. We may not see the answer, we may not know the solution or the place He’s leading to or what we’re going to find, but we’re trusting God to fulfill His promises, like Abraham did when he obeyed God and went out, not even knowing where he was going.⁴—David Brandt Berg

At times in our Christian walk we come to a juncture and we need to know the direction God has for us. At other times the road may be filled with obstacles, littered with potholes, or tied up in “construction.” Just like David, we need to hear God’s advice and counsel. Here is the cool part; all we have to do is turn on our GPS (God’s Positioning System). He is our creator, our Father, and friend. God says in Psalm 32:8:“I will guide you and teach you the way you should go. I will give you good advice and watch over you.”

He will never lead us down the wrong route or leave us when the road gets rough. Although we may not always understand why He steers us on a particular road, we can be confident that He knows how to get us safely to our final destination.—Michele McLean⁵

In many ways life is like a long road trip, and to successfully navigate through our years we each need trustworthy guidance. Let me put it this way: life is full of decisions that make our days feel like one “fork in the road” after another, and we need help in knowing which way we should go. For example: when we’re younger, we want to know where to go to college and what to major in when we get there. We want to know what career is in line with the good work God has prepared in advance for us to do. Later we want guidance as to who to marry as well as direction when it comes to raising children. We want wisdom to help us know how to deal with life’s trials and tribulations. The fact is, we all need guidance in life—all the time. Plus, in this fallen world where morals are blurred, we need help in order to determine what is right and what is wrong. I mean, with so many broad paths, it’s hard to find the straight and narrow one.

It has been said that the decisions we make, make us, and to a large extent that is true. A life well-lived is a life full of good decisions. A tragic life is often littered with ill-considered judgments…

All this goes to show that we need a “GPS” in life that we can count on to be absolutely reliable—and the wonderful news is that God is more than qualified to fill this role. As Isaiah proclaimed, “The Lord of hosts … is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.”⁶

You probably know that Scripture defines God in terms of three “omni’s”… God is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Omni just means ”all,” so omnipresent means God is all-present. In other words, there is nowhere you and I can go where God is not. He is always with us. Omnipotent means all-powerful—so God can do literally anything. And to say that He is omniscient means that God is all-knowledgeable or totally knowledgeable … He has complete knowledge. As it says in 1 Samuel 2:3, ”the Lord is a God of knowledge.”

Understand, this is not saying that God is bright, or that He is sharp. It is not even saying that He is a genius. Using any of these words to describe God would be far too much of an understatement. What the Bible is really teaching with this third “omni” is that God knows everything! No question can confound Him. No dilemma can confuse Him. No event can surprise Him. He has eternal, intrinsic, comprehensive, and absolutely perfect knowledge. And unlike your car’s GPS, God doesn’t have to get regular updates as to road construction. He literally knows it all—all the time.

In fact, the Bible says that even though He keeps track of the moon and the stars, not a single bird falls to the ground without God knowing exactly what is going on. His knowledge even covers the trivial, such as the latest count of the hairs on your head. Hebrews 4:13 puts it this way, “All things are naked and open to the eyes of God.” This means that God’s knowledge includes everything there is to know about you and the trials and decisions you are facing in life. Isn’t that comforting?—Mark Adams⁷

Published on Anchor March 2015. Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso.

¹ Matthew 10:30.

² Mark 11:1–10.

³ Isaiah 30:21 NAS.

⁴ Hebrews 11:8.

⁵ http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/devotions/mclean_gps.aspx.

⁶ Isaiah 28:29.

⁷ http://www.redlandbaptist.org/sermon/gods-gps.

Posted in: audio, compilation, decisions and choice, following god