Do you remember 1981’s James Bond Movie: For Your Eyes Only?
Roger Moore escapes the bad guys skiing down the slopes of the Italian Alps while been pursued by motorcycles with spiked tires.
Well, last month Liz and I had the opportunity to visit Cortina D’Ampezzo, where those scenes were recorded. Maybe I should say we drove through the city, because we were there only for a few hours, while crossing the Alps from Germany to Italy.
It is an interesting little town in a valley surrounded by the mighty Dolomite Mountains, but more interesting than the city was the road we took when we left the city.
We were driving a rental car with a GPS system that seemed to have some sense of humor. Despite the fact the road signs were indicating we should continue on the main road, the GPS insisted we should turn right in this narrow street. Liz was not convinced, but I decided to follow the GPS.
We took this road and very soon we were winding down and up on a pavement that was wide enough for two cars plus one inch, and had a rocky wall on one side and a 300 foot cliff on the other, with corners so tight that the steering would frequently hit its limit.
It quickly went from fun… to scary… to tiring. It was about 25 miles long with over 100 curves, very tight curves. You would think it was a short cut and the GPS knew it. So did I, until I checked on Google Maps to find out the main road was about 10 miles shorter between the same two points.
I may never understand why the GPS took us through that.
But it made me think again how much a GPS resembles how God takes us through the turns in our lives:
– We don’t see the whole map, we only see the next turn.
– If we ignore the direction provided or get confused and miss the turn, it will offer another option (“recalculating…”). In other words, it doesn’t give up on us.
– The alternatives provided are likely not as good as the original plan, but are the best at that point.
So, as we go through some twisty roads in our lives, we frequently get scared, and tired, don’t we? The good thing is: we may rest assure, if we are following His directions, that is exactly where we should be.
Even if we don’t understand why.
