Navigating Each Day with God
- Black Friday: Life Changes - November 23, 2018
- Overwhelmed?Look to God! - June 20, 2018
- Looking Forward in Marriage: Retirement - June 13, 2018
Vacation Prepwork
We recently went on a long weekend with our children. While the trip was nothing big, it was definitely interesting. My story actually started two weeks before our trip.
My husband and I both drive large, gas-guzzling vehicles because of our farm. I decided we needed something smaller and more economical to drive. After much searching, I bought a small, used SUV. I got a great deal on it because it needed a wheel alignment and two new tires. The day before we planned to leave, my husband asked what we were driving on our trip. Since my old vehicle was in the shop and could not be driven safely, he wanted to take the new car.
Well, I had not gotten the wheels aligned or the new tires. Since we live in a small town, we have to drive about thirty miles to have all this done. We went to have the alignment checked and it checked out fine. The bad tires were the only problem! We then went and got two new tires. This took about six hours including drive time. We got home just in time to pick up my old vehicle from our mechanic. What a day AND we had to get up early the next day for our vacation!
The Help that Wasn’t Helpful
Next up, Google Maps! We were merely going from Oklahoma to Texas. Our first stop was the Texas State Fair. For this, we needed a map. My tech-savvy teenagers said Google Maps would help us with navigating. Apparently, that is not a good idea when you are driving through a large city with lots of loops and overpasses. At one point, it gave me different directions for about thirty seconds solid. I was so confused. I finally told the kids to turn the voice off and read me the directions as I drove. It also tried to route me to take all the turnpikes, which I could not due to the paper tag on the new car. Even though Texas has a reciprocity agreement with Oklahoma for turnpikes, the scanner must read the PikePass as well as the license plate. We finally figured out how to navigate through Dallas/Fort Worth and avoid turnpikes on Google Maps.
Arriving at Our Destination
We got to the fair and went on a quest for “fair food.” We all wanted to try fried butter. Yes, you read that right, fried butter! This is an incredible delicacy that we had seen on television years ago and was only available at the Texas State Fair. It is butter wrapped in a dough, deep fried, then topped with powdered sugar and honey. This was just as good as we thought it would be. We also feasted on fried Oreos and fried cookie dough among other things. Of course, my children do have their limits and did not want to try fried Jello or fried lemonade. Really, that was what they said no to!
We had a long day at the fair and then went to our hotel. My children wanted to stay at a hotel with an indoor pool since it was fall and too cold to swim outside. Being the good mom that I am, I found and paid extra for such a hotel! Did any of them swim? No!
The remainder of our trip was unremarkable, except for our navigation misadventures with Google Maps. I did learn that we did not have to spend a lot of money or go far away to have a fun vacation. We had a good time bonding as a family and eating some unusual foods.
Navigating Our Spiritual Lives
This reminded me that we do not have to spend a lot of money or go anywhere specific to spend time with God. He is our Father and just wants us to spend time with Him. Let’s start the New Year off by spending time with Him! The great thing is we can go straight to God. We don’t have to hassle with “Google Maps Bible Edition” that might loop us round and round in frustration before we ever even get to God! We can pray, we can go straight to the Bible, and we can count on the Holy Spirit to guide us. Navigating each day with God by our side will help make the best of every day!
Are you navigating each day with God?
