Onboard Orientering Companion

My friend got a new mobile gps unit for Christmas; so he gave me his old one. I was especially grateful for this fine gift recently when I took my family on a Holiday road trip across northern Indiana. The shortest route to our destination took us through a town that I always get lost in. Every time I drive through it I’m determined to apply my prodigious wit to the problem and self-coach my way across this little town to the connecting highway. But I was like 0-for-3 on that fateful morning when I exited the interstate and headed for the next round of this navigational contest. The gps unit was glowing bright with cartographic images and navigational icons as I approached the pivotal intersection. I anticipated the confident and persistent voice of my onboard orienteering companion but she was strangely silent. So was my wife. The gps unit indicated that I should proceed straight ahead. But my instincts told me that I should follow the highway and turn left. Suddenly it was my turn to go, so I went straight. The road I then found myself on had a 35-mile per hour speed limit. And after the second or third stop sign I was having serious doubts about this gps thing. But I stuck with it and after several minutes we came out on a four-lane highway. The gps instructed me to go left on the highway and then turn right in 500 yards. So I did. And without a single wrong turn I had successfully traversed this little town for the first time ever and was now speeding toward my destination.
And so I’ve been singing the praises of this little electronic marvel that knew a shortcut no human could possibly have figured out. Only an intimate familiarity with local streets or a thorough study of detailed maps could have produced this knowledge. And now it was mine to command!
Yesterday I headed out on a three-hour road trip to my mom’s house, a journey I have made at least a hundred times. I stuck the gps to the windshield just to see what it would tell me. I am confident, as I depart, that I know every possible way to get there and have determined the quickest route. At the first critical junction the gps has to recalculate. Just as I suspected, how could it possibly know all the things I’ve discovered over the years of driving these roads? An hour and a half into the trip the gps is at it again. Telling me to turn left and leave the highway. I’m thinking it must be broke. I know these roads and there’s nothing over there that can work for me. At every junction it wants me to turn left, so finally I give in and make the turn. Now I’m doing 30 on an unfamiliar, narrow county road and I almost ran a stop sign. I start scolding myself for not trusting my own knowledge and good sense. But up ahead I see cars and trucks cruising at highway speeds on a road I will soon intersect with. “Wow, so this is where I am”, the voice that scolded me a minute ago now exclaims! A few minutes later I’m doing the speed limit plus 5 and now I’m recalculating.
This is the part where I avoid the urge to identify all the metaphors I see, or to show you my paper so you can see how I’ve connected the dots. I can think of at least one proverb and one hymn that could make a neat, pithy little application and wrap-up statement for my story. But I’ll leave all that to you. Let me know what you come up with.
DonaldD