November 2, 2008: Spiritual GPS

Dear Friend,

I made it to church this morning. I didn’t see Bart their, but I wasn’t really expecting to see him. He had told me last Sunday that he didn’t know if he would make for that service, so I felt that something might have come up today also. The congregation was quite small, but still multi-ethnic. It’s truly amazing to see so many cultures represented in one place all worshipping the same God.

The pastor’s message drew from an idea mentioned in the Henri Nouwen video I saw in church two Sundays ago, and that was relying on God to know what our mission is. The reading was from Mark 1:35-39. Jesus arose early in the morning to go pray in a solitary place. The disciples eventually found Him and told Him that people were looking for Him, but He told them they would all go to the neighboring town. He had preached in the present town the day before and now had to go to the next town so that they could also hear His message.

The pastor interpreted this passage as Jesus knowing what his mission was. He had been preaching and healing the people in one town, but the next day had gotten up in the morning to pray to His Father to receive instructions. In His solitude with God, He discovered His mission. The people looking for Him were probably disappointed that He wouldn’t be hanging around, but He knew that God wanted Him to move on to the next town. The pastor argued that we also need to find our mission, our calling, in God alone. We shouldn’t depend so much on others to give us meaning and satisfy our calling, because they ultimately can’t. God, however, who created us, has a calling for us wherein we may find meaning. We need to be able to find solitude with God in order to know our calling, and not be distracted by the things of this world. The pastor likened it to a spiritual GPS, an instrument that can keep us on the correct path towards God.

I personally am not a big fan of the GPS. They annoy me, but I understood what the pastor was getting at. I’ve discovered lately in my own life that having that solitude with God is so very important. So often I allow myself to be distracted by what’s going on around me, so much so that I begin to think that’s all that’s ever going on. Sometimes life becomes so overwhelming and I get so wrapped up in my own concerns and goals that I forget my actual calling. I need to reset my GPS and actually pay attention to the seemingly annoying instructions it gives me, so I can find my way back to the road I was supposed to be taking. In my experience, whenever I made a turn the GPS wasn’t expecting, it would always say, “Recalculating,” as if to say, “You idiot, that was stupid.” At least, that’s what it began to sound like after each wrong turn. They usually aren’t wrong turns, just turns I make as shortcuts. However, that can be quite detrimental spiritually. There aren’t any shortcuts to God. There’s only one way, so I need to listen to the GPS.

Blessings.
Kailen