I remember driving with real maps.
Actual maps.
This was already a problem for me because I am terrible with directions.
Always have been.
If someone tells me to make a right, there is a very good chance something inside my body will confidently prepare to go left.
Apparently even my internal compass has authority issues.
Before GPS, if I was going somewhere unfamiliar, I needed help.
I would stop at a gas station, buy a map, sit in the car, and plot my route like I was preparing to cross the Louisiana Purchase.
I highlighted roads. Turnpikes. Exits.
Because without visual evidence, “head north for twelve miles” meant absolutely nothing to me.
North?
Man, I am trying to find New Jersey.
And God help me if I unfolded the entire map.
Once open, there was approximately a twelve-percent chance I was ever getting it back to its original shape.
I folded left.
No.
Right.
No.
Somehow Connecticut was now underneath Pennsylvania and New Jersey had disappeared entirely.
Eventually I shoved the whole thing into the glove compartment and hoped civilization had road signs.
Then GPS arrived. That little unit suction-cupped to the windshield. Suddenly a tiny electronic person knew exactly where I was and exactly where I needed to go.
Turn right in 500 feet.
Stay left.
Take the next exit.
Honestly, it felt like NASA had personally gotten involved in helping me find an Olive Garden.
And when I inevitably missed the turn, it didn’t yell.
It didn’t sigh.
It didn’t say… “Michael, I literally just told you to turn right.”
It simply paused and said… Recalculating. I always loved that. It didn’t care how I got there. It just started with where I was.
And lately I’ve been thinking…
Wouldn’t it be incredible if life worked like that?
Not just for me. For all of us.
A life GPS.
Something that noticed when we had drifted off course before we ended up miles away from ourselves.
When we were worrying about any weekday on a perfectly good Sunday.
When we were trying too hard to keep everyone happy. When we were making little choices that seemed harmless but were slowly taking us somewhere we never intended to go.
And instead of shame, there would just be a calm voice…
Recalculating. You’re here now. Let’s find the next turn.
Because sometimes you can be lost and still look extremely responsible.
That may be the strangest part. You can be paying bills. Making dinner. Driving the kids. Showing up for work. You can love your family and still feel overwhelmed and be grateful and still be tired. You can have a good life and wonder why you don’t feel better inside it and keep showing up everywhere while slowly becoming absent from yourself.
Lost doesn’t always look lost.
Sometimes it looks like a color-coded calendar. Sometimes it looks like productivity. Sometimes it looks like…
“I’m fine.”
I know. I’ve been there. And eventually life asks you to look at where you actually are.
Not where you thought you would be. Not where you used to be.
Here.
And here asks one question…
Now what?
For a long time, I thought the answer was to get back.
Back to the old road. Back to before.
I think I wanted God to put me back at the missed exit so I could get it right.
But GPS never worked that way.
It started with where I was. Maybe grace does too.
Some consequences stay. Some roads close. Some things cannot be undone.
But recalculating doesn’t mean returning. It means starting from here.
Grace doesn’t take you back to the missed exit.
It finds a road from where you are.
No lecture. No shame. Just… Recalculating. You’re here now. Let’s find the next turn.
I could have used that several hundred miles ago.
But here is fine.❤️
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