Life Lessons From Google Maps.

On trusting the process.

Photo by Tamas Tuzes-Katai on Unsplash

How do you get from one place to another?

First you need a starting point, then you need a destination and finally you need a guide.

Today, the Google map is our guide.

So you begin your trip.

Estimated time of arrival is 1 hour from now.

That’s fine, buckle your seatbelt, it’s a fairly long journey.

As you begin, you remember that there’s a faster route, a shortcut that a friend once told you about. For some strange reason though, Google didn’t suggest it to you, but you decide, to take this road instead.

So you decide to take this route, the map re-routes.

This short-cut shortens the trip by about Fifteen minutes.

You’re excited and you begin to move. Ten minutes on this new path and you discover that there’s some road construction happening along the road.

Ah I see why it wasn’t suggested now.

There’s no other alternate route, so you have to turn back to follow the original route. You’re now 20 minutes later than when you first started and you’re upset with yourself for not following the original route.

But it’s fine, you’re still on time. You’re not going to be late.

There’s a bit of traffic now, you’re a bit overwhelmed at this delay, but you’re listening to music and trying to get your spirits up.

You’re now 30 minutes away from your destination, but the traffic is now getting worse. A truck has broken down and now there’s a stand still.

What to do? What to do?

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

So you check the map, turns out there are many ways to detour and escape this crazy traffic that seems to be never ending.

So you do eenie, meanie, minie, mo and pick one of them and decide you will follow it till the end.

What sort of decision was that?

You’ve taken an unfamiliar road, the road is lonely and terrible, potholes, mud, some areas are flooded and you’re not seeing other cars here.

I hope this road actually leads somewhere and it’s not a dead end.

You look at the map again, wondering if truly there’s a way out.

In 100km turn right.

The voice navigator responds, as if to say, trust me, I know where we’re going.

So you trust and you keep following the directions, till finally you see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Signs of life, and a much better road, and it’s like magic, but you end up right outside your destination.

You’re shocked, dumbfounded and pleasantly surprised.

You look at the time and by some miraculous stroke of luck, you’re not late. You’re 5 minutes earlier than you expected.

Phew! That was one heck of a ride. But you made it to where you wanted to be.

Life’s kinda like that isn’t it?

On the road to achieve our heart desires, we need to set a starting point, a specific direction, and we need a guide.

Who better to guide us on this journey than the God who loves us more than anything and wants the best for us.

Now it is possible that on this journey, we’re tempted to take short cuts, instead of following the one God wants us to take. We would soon find out that the short-cut was a dead end, and we re-route and make a U-turn to follow the original plan that God laid out for us.

It might seem like the road is longer and unfamiliar, full of difficulties and struggles. Sometimes the road is lonely. It might feel like we’re going backwards or going around in circles. Then we find out that there are a million and one ways to achieve what we want and get confused on what path to go on. Sometimes there are delays, and we feel like we won’t make it in time.

But trust your guide, He knows all, sees all and is walking with you all through this journey.

A longer route, a strange road, going backwards, multiple routes, traffic delays e.t.c

But at the end of the day, you’d end up at the destination.

Trust the process.

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