Driving Directions

Earlier this month, I was driving out to the Midwest with my friend Kayla. We had been asked by our friends to serve as the godparents to their son. In my hasty preparation for the lengthy drive, I mistakenly plugged in the wrong address into the GPS. Actually, I typed an entirely different state into the GPS. (Though in my defense, both state's have a town with the exact same name!)
For most of the ride, we were directed toward Missouri and not Illinois, where our friends live.

After hearing me endlessly blabber on about crossing the Mississippi River and nearing the city of St. Louis, Kayla gently challenged me to look again at the address. Sure enough, it was incorrect. We were supposed to be arriving to our friends' house in Illinois, not Missouri. Thankfully, Kayla noticed my mistake while we were passing through Illinois. If she had waited any longer to point out my misstep, we potentially would have driven an two additional hours past our actual place of arrival.

(Trust me, I took a lot of flack for this navigation snafu from my friends!)

I recount this story not only for a chuckle at my expense, but primarily because had I not listened to Kayla and went in a different direction, I would have totally missed the destination of my Midwest journey. This experience during my road trip reminds me of yesterday's Gospel passage in which we hear Jesus begin his public ministry with these words, "Repent, and believe in the Gospel!" Perhaps put another way, Jesus is saying, "Check your location, and go in a different direction!"

All of us - whether seasoned Christians or neophytes - are in need of constant conversion and transformation. As human beings, it is our natural inclination to wander from the ways of love and traverse the roads of sin. Sometimes, even our best intentions can lead us down a rocky path. We can quickly become lost.

And so we need to hear that gentle, but firm voice of Jesus, challenging us to look at the direction we are currently taking in our lives: Where am I right now and where am I going? What map am I following? We are challenged to listen carefully to that voice of Jesus, to that good friend who speaks up when we are moving in the wrong direction, and return to the right path. In doing so, we will experience true and lasting peace, an abiding sense of joy in our lives, and we will arrive safely at our destination: life in God.