Consumed by your thoughts, you pass by the street where you were supposed to make a left turn. You were oblivious even though your GPS had calmly informed you "left turn ahead" a few hundred yards back. Once you've realized your error, your momentary panic is eased by the calm voice of your GPS, "recalculating ... recalculating". The tone of the reminder is calm and kind, no alarm here. It's almost as if it expected you to screw it up. It doesn't say I told you so, it is not provoked and doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness. And though we've now gone out of our way, minutes later we are back on track.
Last Sunday, the homily at my church focused on this theme and linked it to our "internal" GPS in it's effort to move us closer to God. While this was in the macro aspect, my mind went immediately to the micro and how we work on a daily basis to move towards our life and work goals. We think we are moving toward that goal or target and for some reason we get caught up in the day-to-day and suddenly we've missed our turn or taken a wrong turn. This miscue may have been a poor decision, financial crisis, staying in an unhealthy relationship, a career mishap or any number of unexpected detours that life hands out. When this happens it's important to stop, recenter ourselves, and listen for that voice. It's funny that when we take a few moments to collect ourselves and look inside, we can hear that inner GPS as it recalculates. It's impossible to hear that voice if your head is surrounded in the noise of the day-to-day. The inner GPS tells you the truth about what you've done, where you are and where you need to go. I'm not saying that this is easy to hear. In fact, many of us hear just part of the message because we immediately resurface to the comfort of the day-to-day noise when the message is tough. It may be too uncomfortable for us to stay "inside" and really listen.
As the saying goes, "nothing worthwhile is ever easy". When you veer off track, listen for the calm voice that evokes from inside ... "recalculating ... recalculating".
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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