Day Twelve in the Wilderness- Directions

One of my favorite disciples, Thomas, once broke the cardinal rule (supposedly) of all men...he asked for directions. After Jesus had said "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way you are going", Thomas asked "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" I am thankful that Thomas had the courage and honesty to ask the question so that we could hear the timeless, priceless answer "I am the way, the truth and the life." It got me thinking about where we go for directions in our lives.

When we were traveling in Germany we were often lost and supremely thankful for the GPS system that Stuart and Megan had in their caravan. It was a comfort to hear the British accented voice saying "Turn left in 200 meters". We didn't understand the street signs (they were in German) so we just trusted that the "British lady" knew what she was doing. We did get a map as well but we discovered that none of us was very adept at reading a German road map. One day, we were meeting Stuart in Worms, Germany since he had to fly a mission while we were visiting Heidelberg. For that day, we printed out a mapquest set of directions (like we would do in America)and hoped that somehow he would be able to find us in this completely foreign country and city. As one might imagine, he got completely lost and finally called up Joan on the cell phone. Her advice was to "look for the steeple of St. Peter's Cathedral and our guest house is right next to it". He did what his mother told him, and within minutes was able to join us at the guest house.

This life parable was a reminder to me of the guides we rely on in our faith journeys in the wilderness. We listen to those voices who have been there before. That "cloud of witnesses" (that Paul talks about in Hebrews 12) are like that GPS system that continually guided us in our journey around Germany. We also look to our roadmap- scriptures- to guide us. We continue to be thankful for Martin Luther's efforts to translate the scriptures into the vernacular of the people since we became very aware of how hard it is to read a map or road signs in a foreign language. And we look to the church to be our guide in those times when all else fails. It was conforting to Stuart to be able to look up in his confusion and see the steeple of the church and to follow it to sanctuary.

While I was writing this devotion, a person came in to sit in our sanctuary at Covenant. She just wanted to spend a little time in the sanctuary in the midst of the wilderness of life. So as we struggle to hear the words of Christ, through the "cloud of witnesses", through the scripture and through the church, we are reminded that it is ultimately Christ who we seek: "The way, the truth and the life".