Great things, sat navs – they can sort your journey out for you so that you can sit back and blindly follow the directions (well, maybe not blindly). No worries, the sat nav – with the help of satellites above – will get you to your desired destination. Yes, but the technology can make mistakes (or the human technology can), like when a Turkish lorry driver was told to deliver goods to Gibraltar, he entered the “Rock of Gibraltar” into his Sat Nav, only to end up in Skegness, some 1600 miles away from where he needed to be! He was directed to Gibraltar point near Skeggy, rather than the sunny Gibraltar south of Spain. Did the route seem right to him, or not?
Of course, as some know, I love my maps and my bookshelf collection of OS ones cover nearly all of the UK mainland. They’re great for finding places in a particular area, though one has been known to have been thrown by road changes since the map was produced. I thought the way seemed right, but, alas, it no longer was!
I was saddened earlier this year when a relation of mine, who is a Buddhist, complained at my referring to John 14:6, where Jesus clearly states: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. She wrote: ‘My sister and I each have our spiritual paths that are resonant and deeply meaningful to us. Our lives are guided by these paths and they are of utmost importance to us. When you assert that your path is the only way, praying that we’ll be converted to Christianity, we feel exasperated’. Sadly, her way seems right to her, but the Bible twice states: There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death. Proverbs 4:12 &16:25 (NET) But Buddhists aren’t the only ones who are on the wrong pathway.
Recently Sandra and I were at the Grace Baptist church in Lewisham. It was the day that the Sivan Hindu temple a few yards down the road was celebrating a festival called Bhadrapada Krishna Ekadash – a day of fasting and worshipping Lord Vishnu. There was lots of colour and noise from drumming as two huge carriages are paraded along and back, passing the Baptist church.
Lots of people celebrating, but they were worshipping a false god. The Hindu way seems right to them, but it’s leading to death. But Buddhists and Hindus aren’t the only ones on the wrong pathway.
People all around us are living their lives as they see fit. The things they do, the ideas they believe in, and the hopes they have, seem to them to be the right way, but they are heading, the Bible says, for eternal destruction. We need to have that burden to seek those we come into con-tact with that they might be saved – rescued from the wrong and disastrous path they are on.
Do you remember those verses I quoted last Sunday by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Tell me, does the way we’re going in life seem right? Test it against God’s Word to make sure.
Steve
Elder
October 2023
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