I took a vacation this summer to South Dakota, which I would recommend to anyone. There is a lot to see. From the Badlands to Mount Rushmore, the Corn Palace and Wall Drug, buffalo in Custer State Park and monolithic stones surrounding Sylvan Lake, there are plenty of things to fill your days and marvel upon.
I used the Google map app on my phone to direct me everywhere I went. And that experience was quite enlightening for me. For instance, the voice directing me would sometimes tell me to turn only moments before the intersection. And oftentimes I would hear nothing from the app for hundreds of miles because I was on the same road the whole time. The hardest thing to accept, though, was when the voice on the app told me to take gravel roads on the way home through Nebraska. “This can’t can’t be. There must be some mistake.” But then I would zoom out on my phone and see that the gravel road was the best and fastest way to get to my destination. So I would continue to bump along in my increasingly dusty car. And I got home fine.
I notice that the car is still a little dusty. And that reminds me of where I have been and how the voice of the Google app did not steer me wrong. This experience recalls for me that life takes us down gravel roads that we don’t think we should be going on. Maybe it is an illness, a death in the family, a rough spot in a relationship. “This can’t be right,” we say in the moment. But then if we take a step back, we can see that it was all part of a bigger road trip that is laid out for us. Think of God as that voice on my Google app that says, “Go straight” and keep listening to that voice that tells you where to go. He will take you safely home.
