A Fix For My GPS Life View

Diane and I often drive south on I 65 from our home in Franklin, Tennessee to the beach in Destin, Florida.  We’ve been driving to Destin for some 35 years.  At the beginning, we got a map from AAA called a TripTik.  It came with the route marked on multiple pages. Each page was about five inches wide and 8 inches long and showed a specific portion of the trip. The pages were attached by a spiral at the top so you could flip a page over when you finished that fifty mile or so portion.  Each page highlighted the route we were to take and all the roads and exits that we would pass.

Today we have a GPS in our car.  It works very much like the old TripTiK except you don’t have to turn pages…the triangle designating our car just magically moves down the page.  Actually, I think maybe the page moves up under the triangle creating the illusion of movement… not really sure.

I’m always in a rush to make good time down the highway, checking the time spent at certain markers along the way. But, most of the time, we take a break at Exit 351, just across the state line in Alabama.  There they have a wide variety of fast food and gas stations.  Although we are quite familiar with the Shell Station, the Chick-Fil-A, a Starbucks, and the Bojangles, we really don’t know anyone there.  (Thirty years ago the only food stop was a McDonald’s).  I do know that before Exit 351, there is Highway 31 at Exit 354; and at Exit 351, we cross US Highway 72.  Soon after, there is Exit 347 which is some road whose name I do not recall.  I really don’t think much about these roads (even though we have driven past them hundreds of times)  except that they go under our triangle on the GPS.  Depending on whether I have zoomed in or zoomed out, the GPS only shows … maybe… a mile or two of these roads on each side or our route.  So they really just seem like lines that we are crossing as we travel on.

But US Highway 72 is a lot more than a line under I 65. To the East, it goes into Huntsville, where thousands work on programs related to our country’s space program at the US Space and Rocket Center, and locals eat breakfast at the Blue Plate Cafe.  Hwy 72 continues east through Gurley and Paint Rock before it turns north at Lake Guntersville and into Tennessee near South Pittsburgh. To the West, Hwy 72 goes through Athens, Florence, and Cherokee before it parallels the Tennessee state line and cuts north toward Memphis. All along this route, and in each of these towns, are homes, jobs, schools, restaurants, gas stations, people, and their lives. I don’t really need to know all the details of Hwy 72 to get to Destin, but having an awareness that it is more than what I see on my GPS doesn’t hurt either.  I may need Hwy 72 some day.

Do you ever feel like I do…that the road of my life is mostly traveled as though I am in a big hurry, headed towards some destination, seeing most people as just lines on a map as they cross my path?  I usually fail to recognize that those people are on their own roads; with towns and restaurants and churches and families and problems and loves and hurts that are all out of my view…off my GPS screen.  But, isn’t that where the unseen things that have the most significance are taking place?

I think a blind man who was healed by Jesus had the same problem.  Sure, there was no GPS or even a TripTik then…but even after healing by our Lord,  he at first only saw people as trees.

“And Jesus took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up; and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.”

Mark 8:23-25

So, is it possible that if I could truly see every man, woman, and child clearly, I would see more than just the intersections they have with my own life?

Can I see and communicate with the older gentleman bagging our groceries at Publix as someone who will go home tired tonight?  As someone whose grandson is in rehab for a heroin addiction?  If so, will I act differently in that check out line?

Is it possible for me to pause long enough to clearly see the girl who gets my order wrong at Panera as someone who is studying hard to make it through college… while working six mornings each week to pay for that education?  Will I act differently if I recognize her as someone who is still formulating her own life view… so easily impacted by the kindnesses or contempt shown by those whose orders have been messed up?

What about the guy I just reverently called Moron, who just blocked my lane because he tried to sneak through the intersection when there was no space for his car…and I had to wait through another red light?  Could he be rushing to gather his son before the day care closes?

How I desperately need another touch from God to let me truly see the people whose lives I cross as more than trees walking… or as intersecting lines in my limited GPS life view.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”  — 2 Corinthians 4:18

I don’t know about you, but I think that before I can fix my eyes on the unseen, I need Christ to really fix my eyes.  I need the continuing revelation of the Kingdom of God in my heart, mind, and soul.

Father: Please touch my eyes again today.

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