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God’s Piloting Spirit

/in /by

Years back, I had a show in a small North Carolina mountain town I’d never visited, though I’d played many nearby. Wanting a scenic drive, I planned extra time to meander through the mountains and arrive well ahead of schedule.
I’ve never trusted electronic GPS—printed maps were always my go-to. But this time, I consulted an online mapping service before leaving home and printed the directions. With a smile, my truck packed, and a sense of adventure, I set off into the unknown.
The drive was pleasant, winding through Tennessee toward North Carolina, until the directions went awry. I turned off a major highway onto a quiet county road, then a rougher one, then a gravel track. Soon, I was rattling along a dirt path—two lanes shrinking to one, pocked with dips and holes. I pressed on in faith until I hit a farm gate blocking a pasture. The internet map had led me to a dead end.
If this were a leisurely jaunt, I might’ve laughed it off. But with a job ahead and time slipping away, stress crept in. I still had hours to travel and a deadline to meet. Inch by inch, I turned my truck around on that narrow lane and retraced my steps to the last decent road. I stepped out, glanced at the sun, checked my watch, and reckoned the direction I needed. Pointing my truck accordingly, I navigated a web of backroads until I hit a familiar state highway. Pedal down, I rolled into town just half an hour late—still early enough to prep and take the stage, hoping to make memories for the crowd.
The conventional route would’ve taken three and a half hours. My “adventure” stretched it to six. Trusting my instincts had pulled me out of the wilderness, but had I leaned on them from the start, the day might’ve stayed leisurely instead of turning tense.
Why share this? On the surface, it’s a simple lesson: don’t blindly trust tech. Dig deeper, and it’s more universal. When we let others chart our course, we risk veering off track—sometimes innocently, sometimes not. I recovered thanks to a frontier spirit inherited from ancestors who braved unmapped wilds on foot and horseback. But what if I hadn’t?
It’s a reminder to weigh who’s guiding us. Do they care about our success? Maybe that’s why Reno & Smiley sang, “I’m Using My Bible for a Road Map.” God’s guidance—through spirit and sense—steered me where I needed to be, using my gifts to touch others. So, are you relying on GPS, or God’s Piloting Spirit?

Why can’t I find you?

/in /by

Have you ever went where you thought something was and when you got there, I golly, it wasn’t.

I am amazed at how this phenomena can plaque our thoughts and erode a day into loss of effectiveness.

I know I put it there. That’s my safe place. When was the last time I used it?

Did I put it back? Did I leave it somewhere? Did someone take it?

I recently was looking for an item which has little value but means the world to me. It represents an important achievement in my career and thus my life. I would wear it on special occasions.

When this happens you begin racking you thoughts as when was the last time you saw the item.

Sadly, in this case, I don’t recall. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I would have used it. The last important one was 12 years back. That’s a long time for it to sit and not be used. There had to be something since. Keep thinking man!

So, in desperation, I began the systematic review of every nook and cranny in the house.

I remove each drawer, take out every item and then replace them. As I progress through the effort, another drawer, another drawer, until I reach nine of them. I shift to the cedar chest, everything out, everything back in. No luck. Three more drawers and a wardrobe to go.

Will I find it? I’m hope so, if not, I must begin the same process in other rooms and closets.

I know, unless I did something stupid at some point in history and lost it while having it on a trip, it is within the house. I just have to keep searching.

The effort does become tiring but at some point there will be a resolution – either I will find it, or I will come to the conclusion, it will remain in the land of the lost.

In a way, this is a lesson for life that we all can draw from.

We spend much of our life looking for things. We seek someone to spend our life with, a true love.

We hunt a job that will provide and sustain our daily needs. We strive to find success in our endeavors that bring us satisfaction. We look for the meaning of life.

Do we find these things? Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. What we wanted remains outside our reach.

Do we keep searching for it?

I think we should never give up the search. We might take a break from the effort, but pick it up again when our mind and body is recharged.

No matter what you are looking for, the adventure of life is within the search. Once we find our goal, we tend to find yet another goal to seek. That is the nature of much of our life.

So, keep hunting, you will find it. Now, back to my drawers. I didn’t remember having so many socks. By the way, if you find a blue sock with a guitar on it in you dryer, I think it’s mine.

Will I find it?

/in /by

There are times I find myself looking for something that had eluded me.

In childhood, one of my favorite Saturday morning shows was “The Land of the Lost.”

In the story line, humans fell through a crack in space and time to the period and place where they had to exist with dinosaurs.

I am not sure where that crack is they fell through. I have never seen it but I have a feeling that it simply appears and disappears at will.

I currently have a line of socks sitting on my ironing board with no mates.

The crack seems to be drawn to my dryer. While I generally have liked wearing matching socks, I

am beginning to think that trend will have to change in order to stay ahead of the losses.

Perhaps it has a magnetism, the crack simply appears when something desires to escape its surroundings and find new adventures.

I don’t know where those little items get to that seem to take the trip.

Eventually, though they find their way back and usually just slightly off from their original position no worse for the wear.

I imagine though some of them could write a book that only the other in adamant objects could appreciate.

I have often placed the disappearances especially on items like car keys or things which delay departure as simply an angelical nudge to prevent some unknown course of action which would not have been in my best interest.

Even those times pass as the item reveals itself and the original desired departure occurs.

Sometimes I wonder if they are lost or are we.

Are we searching in vain in this world trying to find something that we do not really need?

Is the path that is promised that is ahead what we have really lost?

As we look upon recent events both here at home and abroad, sometimes I feel that we all have now fallen through that crack into the land of the lost. It seems that the dinosaurs have taken a different form but they still put our future at peril.

In the increasing sequence of velocity of the negative, I am pleased to see through the crack the reverberations of those who are seeking the Light of God’s love, being drawn into Revival at points reaching out initially from the crack that revealed itself at Asbury in Kentucky.

Perhaps this crack will widen and allow many more of the Lost to be found, perhaps the socks will find their match, the keys will reappear with destination fully ready to receive all those with a willing heart.

May our land become the center of such rejoicing in God’s gifts that no one resides in the land of the lost.