Have you got the right map?

Do you like maps? Are you one of those types who likes to sit down and study them? And how is your geography – your sense of where places are in relation to each other?

My daughter was doing a project on the 20^th Century and asked me what important things happened in the noughties. Tough one that. For my wife and I it was a blur – small children getting considerably bigger and moving down to Plymouth to start the Vineyard Church seemed to dominate everything.

But there wasn’t a whole lot going on – not compared to the other decades – the 60s for instance, or the 80s with its distinct style and flavour of nostalgia. At least that’s how I feel – but maybe you experienced your formative years in the noughties and feel very different about them. Maybe for you they do hold memories and cultural attachments?

One thing I can remember happening though. At the beginning of the decade people would have mostly been navigating using a map. You remember how that happened? If you wanted to get somewhere you got out your AA roadmap and worked out a route. Or if it were somewhere in Plymouth you would get out your A-Z, go to the index, find the road, the page number and the grid reference, and then plot how to get there. 

By the end of the decade, however, most people will have been punching their destination into a sat nav, hitting go and striking out into the journey without a clue of where they’re going – blindly following the instructions of an electronic voice who can’t quite pronounce the names of the streets properly.

There is satisfaction in using a map and understanding your route – how things connect together and where places actually are. And it empowers you if things go wrong – you can usually work your way back to where you need to be.

So why is it I still rely on the electronics? Why don’t I at least use both? Still I find myself flummoxed by a wrong turn or a diversion sign and get completely lost, or frustrated that my sat nav takes me a silly route. Is it laziness that stops me from informing myself through a good old-fashioned map? Or am I being culturally conditioned to switch off my brain and switch on my device?

Maybe over-relying on sat nav means we lose our sense of direction as a result.

My brother was once approached in London by a tourist who wanted help reading her map. It turned out that she was actually using the wrong map, but when this was pointed out to her she insisted on holding onto it rather than swapping it for a more appropriate one. 

This is a metaphor for life. Aside from the fact that many of us are unsure of our destination – and by this I am not talking eternal destination but rather the goals we live our lives to achieve – even those of us that do have destinations in mind do we have an adequate map? Is our understanding of how we will arrive there in any way correct and how do we know whether it is or not?

In his ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ Steven Covey says we should begin with the end in mind – start out with an idea or where you want to end up. And every now and then as you hack your way through the jungle of life, shin up a tree and take your bearings to make sure you aren’t veering off course.

It would be too simplistic to call the Bible God’s map for life, but within it there are some excellent navigational tools, and Jesus’ sermon on the mount comes readily to mind.

The destination he was recommending was a life of blessing for even the poorest and most marginalised, and then he unpacks the means to achieve such blessing. Of course in those days they didn’t have maps – if you knew the way you invited people to tag along with you in order for them to get to their destination. In other words you became their living sat nav.

When people asked Jesus the way to God he memorably said: ‘I am the way. Stick by me and you will find God. In fact I am not only the way, I am the truth and the life – stick by me and you will find the way for sure, but also truth, and life.’ 

Jesus – our living sat nav for life.

I decided to stick by Jesus and follow him some years ago, and he hasn’t let me down yet (unlike my sat nav).