A recent article describes the disasters that have befallen people who followed their GPS even when it was wrong.*
- A man in the Upper West Side of Manhattan followed the directions of his GPS to turn west. He suddenly found himself driving down the steps in Riverside Park.
- Japanese tourists in Australia were attempting to get to North Stradbroke Island, which is actually nine miles off the coast from Brisbane. They followed the instructions of their GPS to drive down a gravel road, but ended up driving into the sea. The preferred method for getting to the island is by ferry boat. The car was a total loss.
- A woman in Brussels was picking up friends at the train station. She continued to follow her GPS even when it required her to stop and refill her car up with gasoline twice. Finally when she arrived in Zagreb, Croatia, she decided there was a problem.
Some of these cases are humorous (as long as your not the one making the mistake), but faulty GPS directions can also be life threatening. A man in the UK followed his satellite navigation system even when the road became a path. His car finally bumped up against a thin wire fence — the only thing between him and a 100-foot drop. Cases have also occurred of people running out of gas in the desert because of faulty GPS information resulting in a search and rescue.
The old computer adage is garbage in, garbage out. It is still true even when it is a GPS giving you spoken, turn by turn directions. The problem with the machine is that humans make mistakes.
What about the spiritual directions in your life? Someone will say so-and-so told me this is the way to be saved. Are they right? How do you know for sure? Human beings make mistakes, and they sometimes give faulty directions even when well-intentioned. (By the way, this is why I frequently say: “I don’t want you to believe it because I said it, but because you found it in Scripture.”)
Jesus spoke of the narrow gate and the narrow road that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14). Jesus says that few find it. It is worth checking your directions. After all, the Bible is the only infallible guide of directions for the narrow road.
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*http://news.yahoo.com/8-drivers-blindly-followed-gps-disaster-213900496.html
while today 