Recently, I was invited by friends to attend a Christian music festival in one of those towns outside London. My friends came to pick me in their car and we headed out. Before we left however, my friend who was driving, took out his SatNav and punched in the post code of our destination and we proceeded on our journey.

This journey ordinarily should have taken us about one and half hours but we ended up getting to our destination three hours later. ‘What happened?’ you might ask.



When we got to a particular point on the highway, we were meant to take a turn but the SatNav did not prompt us. By the time we took the wrong turn, we realized that we were in the other side of the road heading back to London and had to drive 29 miles before we could turn back to the other side!

While discussing the problem with the SatNav, my friend who was driving confirmed that the current map on the device needed to be updated and he had not done so yet because of the cost. This definitely affected the accuracy of the directions being given. Thankfully we made it just in time for my friends to minister.

Life itself is a journey. It is full of unexpected twists and turns. Except you have a divine SatNav to navigate you through this journey, you will end up missing the road to your divine destination just like we did on our journey.

In Exodus 13: 17, the children of Israel had just left Egypt after being delivered by the mighty hand of God. The shortest route out should have been through Philistine country but God decided otherwise. Why? He said, "If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt." (Exodus 13:17) So God had to take them through a longer route via the red sea.  God knew their hearts; He knew that in spite of charting their course for them, they would turn back at the slightest sign of war from the Philistines. God therefore had to chart another route, though a longer one, leading to the same destination.

This I believe is one of the reasons why some of us haven’t received what we are praying for. God knows our hearts. He knows what we will do if He were to take us through the short cut to get what we have asked for. He knows that at the slightest challenge from the enemy, we would give up and change our minds. So He takes us through the journey one step at a time, sometimes taking us through longer routes just to keep us on track.

Why did it take Israel 40 years to get to the Promised Land? They simply refused to follow God’s SatNav. When they were supposed to go right, they turned left and when they were supposed to go straight, they branched off, just as it took us three hours to do a one hour journey!

How then can we follow the course that God had charted for us? He made it easier for us by giving us His word.  To back His word up, He also gave us His Spirit as a witness to His word.

We are however living in the days where even as Christians, we are taught to believe in ourselves. What is special in that? Even unbelievers are taught the same thing? Do not get my wrong, I am not saying it is not good to believe in one’s self but when we arrogate self to the place of God, then there is a serious problem. We cannot afford to put self in the driving seat of our lives. Doing that will make us journey through life, wondering where our destination is.

The SatNav we use is dependent on a lot of things. The device must be functioning well and the maps must be updated regularly. Even then, it has no way of telling you that there is danger in the road or an accident has just occurred.

Our divine SatNav on the other hand needs no update or upgrade. It had remained dependable over the centuries. The same blueprint which led Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan which God promised to his descendants.

God’s word is the map; the Holy Spirit is the prompt. Travelling  through life  with these two, you can never get it wrong.

Steve O. Popoola

(c) Biblepraise Fellowship, May 2010.



Steve Popoola is the editor of Biblepraise Newsletter and the webmaster of Biblepraise Fellowship Online at http://www.biblepraise.org . He currently resides in London. He is married to Maris and they have three lovely children; Praise, Stephanie and Precious. He can be reached through His email address, steve@biblepraise.org