As surely as Jack could find his way anywhere, I surely cannot.
On the plus side, I don’t mind asking for directions. But the hitch is that the help is only as good as the directions themselves.
Probably the most maddening example of this, at least in recent memory, was the day I set out to join my soon-to-be daughter-in-law and her mom. I’d been invited to be part of a meeting in which they and the caterer would be deciding the details of the wedding reception, and oh, I could not wait. I looked forward to it for days, and when the appointed time came, I got in my car and headed out.
When I thought I was a few miles shy of my destination, I stopped at a gas station to confirm my understanding. Oh, no, I was told, I needed to make a left at this intersection, go two miles, then right, and it would be right there.
Relieved that I had just avoided wasting time, I followed the man’s directions. The restaurant wasn’t there. I asked someone else. This time I was told I was on the right road, I just needed to go up further. I went up further. No restaurant. More directions, more error. By now I’m glad I have a full tank of gas and a cell phone, because it was getting clear, Toto, that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
I guess it was arriving at a dead-end on a country road, fields stretching in all directions, that finally tipped me off.
I can’t remember how many people gave me their best idea of redirection, but they all had two things in common: they all sincerely wanted to help me, and they were all sincerely wrong. A mail carrier, new to the area and armed with a map, took the time to study it and give me his best insight, and still I was off course. Though I followed all directions scrupulously, even the ones that contradicted the previous directions I’d received, it took an hour and a half of driving in circles to finally, finally, at LAST, pull into the parking lot and join the meeting. I was seldom so glad to arrive at my destination in my life.
The key was finally getting accurate directions from someone who actually knew the way.
It comes to my mind that traveling through life is a parallel experience. We get directions from Madison Avenue or our friends and family, and they all promise to get us where we want to go, but they are incomplete. They point us down side roads as if they are the main highway. So getting an education, or a job, or a spouse, or delightful children, or an orderly home, or a night hanging with friends —all fine goals as far as they go—are still not what ultimately gets us where we really want to be when all is said and done.
Jack spent the first twenty years of his life following these directions. He bought his first car and polished that beauty even in the dead of winter. He loved his family, was trusted by his employers, and bought whatever he wanted because he worked hard and lived simply. His first car was bought with cash, for example, and he often went out to eat, drink, and hang with his friends. All fine and good, just not ultimately satisfying.
But when he was twenty, he got the one accurate direction that changed the whole course of his life. He talked with a pastor who showed him what Jesus said about himself:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6
Jack took that direction and never looked back. He continued to love cars, family, food and drink, and working hard. He just didn’t rely on them to get him to Heaven.
So today, this Saturday, sitting here in my little house, I know he has gotten all the way Home, and one day I will be able to pull into the driveway next to him and be Home, too.