Directions.

When I was growing up, my mom traveled all over the place and me and my little brother, Scott, was in the car or truck with her. In those moments of traveling across the country (literally), we would, like kids do, call 'shotgun'. And happily the winner would jump in the front seat. But in our family, a different chore came with riding up front, we were the 'navigator' for my mom. So we would be given the road map shown where we are and told that we were traveling on 'I-80 West to wherever' and it was our job to tell mom where the exits were and what road was coming up that might be a place to stay and sleep over night or a good place to have lunch or dinner. And we learned how to read a road map and give directions. A trait I cherish today. Why you ask? Well for two reasons, one was learned during our office's Christmas party when I was traveling with 2 co-workers and handed them a road map and asked them to give me directions.....believe it or not they couldn't tell me where to go or read the map. The 2nd reason, over the past couple months Jennifer has been going to friends' homes where she hasn't been before and relied on directions from friends (who live in the houses we are going to) who could not give us directions. This weekend, I giggled about it but told Jenn "what is it with your friends and directions to their homes"; and she said "I don't know. They all have GPS on their phones." Ah Hah!!! The Reason! I jokingly told her that I was going to youth and give a class on giving directions (maybe not such a joke after all).
I was never good with giving directions correctly, you know the go north on blank road then turn west on that street. I even, as an adult, have to tap on the passenger window when I mean right and snap when I want a left. I really can't tell you why either, I know my left from my right I just have a problem getting the correct word out. But I can give directions by landmarks, something that people have told me that women do well, and I can give pretty clear directions to other women when using landmarks - by the way, men hate it when I do that. I can't believe how simple it is to give directions really. I mean you do live at your home, and at some point in time, you have had to leave and return to your home, so you should be able, to some extent, give directions to get someone to your home. Right? Well, maybe not so much anymore with dependence on machines and satellites why do we need to be able to give directions? My opinion, if you can't give directions you can't take directions. In Luke 10:27 Christ gave simple instructions on how to get other people 'home' to his disciples "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." Pretty simple instructions I think, although I may be having problems with those simple instructions, they are pretty simple and straight forward. Christ gave a lot of direction, very simple and straight forward directions on how to get 'home'. In Matt 28:19 He says "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." Again pretty simple instructions, right? Ok so these instructions may be a little more difficult to follow but its pretty straight forward. I picked these two directions from Christ for a reason. The first one is really simple, easy to follow, love the Lord with all of you, that means everything in you, by you, through you, you. Equate this to a neighbor coming over and you tell them "leave your drive way go left go two houses and your at my house". TaaDaa! Directions!! Pretty easy simple here ya go there's no way you can get lost. The second one, a little more difficult - go right out of your drive way, take a right down 15/501, go 2.5 miles, take a left on Pinebluff Rd, go over the bridge and stay straight, go thru the stop sign to the 2nd stop sign, take a right on US 1 North, go approximately 3.0 miles to 15/501 South, make a right go about 4 miles until you see a split in the road, thats Stubby Oaks go left, but don't take the immediate left its not the road you need, stay straight for about 1/2 miles and take the first left dirt road. That's easy to read but if you didn't know any better, I just sent you in a circle from my house to my house. The second set of directions Christ gave was to go and make disciples of all nations. How in the world do you do that? I can't tell you for sure, I'm not doing a very good job I don't think, but I think Lee is. He's working on leading yet again another group of men teach them to be teachers, or disciples. Lee and I both started with the simpliest of directions, Love the Lord your God. After that the directions seemed to flow without struggle or re-reading, like going from our house to our close friends house, natural.
So why are directions important? If I can't give directions to my home, like those friends of Jennifers, how am I ever going to be able to lead someone to Christ? My home is easy to find, and God's love and eternal life is too, you just have to read the directions.