God’s GPS

My husband and I were driving around Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, USA. We turned onto the Old Fall River Road and drove until we came to the one-way stretch that goes to the top of Trail Ridge. Since it was closed, we circled through a nearby picnic area and rejoined the road going east. Suddenly the GPS began to exclaim, “You are going the wrong way!” It must have “thought” we were going the wrong way on the one-way stretch of road. We just laughed and ignored it. After some thought I realized God has a GPS: God’s Personal System, the Holy Spirit. We can see it at work in several Bible stories: When Elijah, exhausted and frightened by a wicked queen’s death threat, ran for his life, he found himself in a cave. Finally he heard God’s GPS as a gentle whisper, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:12, 13, NIV). King Balak of Moab offered Balaam a large sum of money if he cursed God’s people. Balaam knew he could not curse what God had blessed, but he wanted the money so badly. He ignored God’s GPS and ended up having a conversation with a donkey! (Numbers 22).

God had told Jonah to go to Nineveh with a message of repentance—not something he wanted to do, so he ignored God’s GPS and ended up in the belly of a fish with seaweed wrapped around his head (Jonah 1; 2). Peter—on-again, off-again Peter.

After denying he even knew Jesus three times, God’s GPS rang loud and clear in his conscience when Jesus turned and looked at him.

He went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:54–62).

Judas spent three years fighting God’s GPS.

At the Last Supper he was given one more chance to repent. “But the last appeal of love was unheeded. . . . And the feet that Jesus had washed went forth to the betrayer’s work.”* It was Judas’s last supper, for he hung himself the next day. If we are lost at last, we would have to have spent a lifetime fighting against God’s GPS.

The Holy Spirit’s convicting power does not easily let go.

How much better to listen and spend eternity with Jesus.

Sharon Oster

* Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press®, 2005), 720.