I recently needed to rent a car. It had a wonderful GPS navigation system. There would be a very-far-away, ultimate destination – and it would plot a route. I could specify shortest, fastest, avoid tolls, avoid motorways, etc.
Sometimes, I wouldn’t follow the system’s instructions. Sometimes, there were significant new changes and there was a better way to follow… Very rarely the system said I should do a U-turn. Mostly, if I departed from its instructions, it simply recalculated and incorporated my changes, or the changes to the landscape and geography, and produced a new way to get to my final destination.
I think it’s a good model for God’s will.
There is a final destination that God’s will has in mind for each of us – union with God, deification, or however you might describe it… heaven even…
God’s initial plan might have been that you best reach this by marrying A and training for Job B. But you fell in love with C and didn’t put in the effort required for B and so worked for years as a D. Well, it is not as if God calls you to divorce C, break up A’s marriage, and start afresh with A as was in the original plan – quite the opposite. God simply recalculates how you can now best reach your ultimate goal with C and working as a D.
Sure, occasionally there is a call for a U-turn. You’ve ended up in a dead-end street in your life, and there is no other way to proceed but by going back.
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I like this analogy.
But I am not sure that God micromanages who one marries or what job one trains for. I think God pretty much allows the universe to run it’s course, including a very generous freedom for human free will.
Many Blessings
Yes, Chris – which is the point of the GPS analogy. Not micromanaging, but more “best fit”, “deepest yearning” – which I see as “God’s will”. But sometimes we miss the “best fit” or are not in touch with our “deepest yearning” and make choices that lead to the next significant junction where, having made the previous decision(s), we now are presented with a new “better/best fit” and/or “deep/deepest yearning”. Easter Season Blessings.
It is a very accurate image!