Chillin' at Windy Gap

Directions

I am really bad at directions… I don’t know why, but I can travel to a place a kabillion times and still need directions. I think one reason is that if I go somewhere and I’m not driving, or even if I am driving but I am following someone else, I just don’t pay any attention to the roads or the turns. A great example of my lack of navigational prowess was my trip to Young Life’s Windy Gap a couple of weeks ago… Now, I have been to Windy Gap five times before this fall’s trip, but I have never driven by myself, so the only thing I really knew for sure was that Windy Gap was somewhere in North Carolina…

In steps Tom (who by the way is that guy who always has a short-cut or a scenic route that just has to be different than the widely accepted course) with some creative directions… literally, he drew them. Anyway, he gave me instructions that put me on some highway that carved through a few of the random little backwoods towns of Tennessee. It was, as he promised, a very beautiful route, and it might have even been a short-cut, but I’m so bad at navigation that I was nervous the whole time and calling him every five minutes… “Am I still going the right way? I’ve been on this road for ever! Are you sure this is right!?” He just said, “Keep going, dude… you’re fine.” And he was right. I didn’t know the first thing about how to get to Windy Gap and when he told me his way, I felt a little suspect, but he directed me right to where I needed to be.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just don’t know how to get my heart where it needs to be during the day… Sometimes my quiet time just doesn’t give me anything. Sometimes my prayers just feel shallow. Sometimes my day feels impossible and I just want to run away from everything. How can I get where I need to be? What is the exit I need to take and what route should I follow to lead me to a praise-filled, Christ-centered heart? I know I’ve been there before, but I just can’t always find my way… so how do I get there?

You know what Paul did? He asked God to get people where they needed to be. Included in tons of his prayers for other people are these little sections where Paul asks that God will intervene in their emotions and invade their attitudes, making them what they should be. One cool example is in 2 Thessalonians 3:5 which says, “May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.” When I don’t know just how to get my mindset and attitude to where they’re supposed to be, God does and He’s the One who can direct my heart… steer it, change it and fill it up with the right stuff. If your heart’s headed the wrong way and you don’t know how to turn that thing around, just stop and ask for directions.