26 May 2024

Disciple heard two great talks in Church today. One was a young woman, 6 month return missionary who is about to be married. She served in the Philippines. She spoke of working together and getting along. Wonderful advice. The other speaker was a great and funny guy. It was part of his talk that had Disciple getting her notepad out and jotting things down. Writer won’t go into ALL of the details of his talk, but will instead write about the GPS part. He said that his wife and kids went to California over 30 times one year. He would go as well, but not quite that often. SO she knew the route to where they were going VERY well. He mentioned how one of the last times he drove with his family, he set the GPS, even though he knew the way and they headed out. Down Cajon Pass, and at the bottom, there is a place where you go to the left, to San Diego, and the right, to LA area. Disciple is very familiar with this, as she has gone with Chauffeur and MANY others from The Hermitage on a similar trek. Well, the GPS was telling him to go a different way from what he “knew” and he didn’t want to do that. AND his wife was telling him the SAME thing the GPS was telling him. BUT he went the way he had gone in the pass, not realizing that the freeway had been rearranged and changed since he had been there. WHOOPS! The GPS immediately regroups and tells you where you need to go and what you need to do to get back on the right path to go the correct way. He said, wives not so much. We all laughed. He said that after several U-turns, right turns, left turns, they were back on the correct freeway and headed to their destination. Did the GPS throw up its arms and give up? NO! Did it stop working because he was on the wrong path? NO! It merely recalculated. Was it difficult to get back on the correct path? A little. Was the road hard? At times.

Disciple was still listening to the speaker, BUT Writer was off on a tangent! A GPS! God is like a GPS. God’s Personal Shepherding device!!! Writer went to the thesaurus…”S” System, Supervision, Steering…all of them were great. But shepherding seemed SO like the Savior. And she talked with Disciple later. God’s Personal Shepherding device doesn’t throw its hands in the air when we make a mistake. His hands gently guide us back to where we should be. He doesn’t push us, but guides us. We can still make other turns, BUT He is ALWAYS there to guide us. Will the road be hard? Will there be bumps? Will we get frustrated? Maybe. Probably. BUT He is ALWAYS right there to lead us on. To guide and direct. To shepherd us as we may need it. His help is ALWAYS available.

Chauffeur was told of all of this and now, each time the regular GPS is used, we ALL will remember this. Just as the regular GPS tells us of ALL the ways available to go; fastest, easiest, longest, with congestion, with delays, with heavy traffic, with construction, shortest, etc. she knows there are a myriad of choices to get where we are going. We know that God’s Personal Shepherding device, IF we ask, will ALWAYS lead us the way we need to go. What a blessing!