Navigationally Challenged

My inner pride always tells me that I don't need to look up directions.  "You know where you are going," my stubbornness announces in a loud voice.  "Don't waste your valuable time looking it up.  You'll get there just fine."

How many hundreds of times I have listened to that lie?  Let me count the ways.  Like the time I ended up in Birmingham instead of Atlanta?  Like the time I was taking my then-14-year-old daughter to a friend's house in Mississippi?  We wandered around in circles on farm roads for 45 minutes until we saw an ancient gas station straight out of the 1940s.  We pulled up and an old man wearing overalls emerged from the station and asked us, "You girls lookin' for the casino?"

A few minutes of my time seeking directions doesn't rob me of time, it saves time, frustration, and getting totally lost.

I am always amazed at what I read in my Bible in the morning, somehow always works its way into my day.  I have an early morning meeting today, so I slid out of bed a little bit earlier.  The verse I jotted down for the day was 1 Kings 22.5:

"And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel,
     "Inquire first for the word of the LORD."

And through it, God reminded me not just to mapquest directions to my morning appointment, but to inquire of Him about my day ahead.  Not to shove God into the gaps of my day, but to inquire His day for me and follow Him into it.

When I do that, there are no interruptions or detours, but only His path and the people, places and purposes that He has placed before me.

I've never regretted spending time with the LORD in His Word and prayer.  There are many times that I have regretted not doing it.