I’m a guy, you know.
I can tell that I’m a guy because I tend to ALWAYS trust my GPS and NEVER consider stopping to ask a “local” for directions. “It’s a guy thing!” By the way, I don’t really ALWAYS trust my GPS. I was in a big city recently and decided I knew the way to where I was going better than the app on my phone. I ended up taking the long road…the GPS was right. However, I also DIDN'T trust my GPS when I was traveling to a friend’s house in my own town. I had been there once before and needed a little extra help…until I discovered that the GPS would have landed me in a location about five miles from the neighborhood where I was going.
Does this mean that the GPS and I are each batting .500?
As a guy, I figure it’s also my prerogative to skip the poorly-translated-into-English assembly instructions which came with that new gizmo we just ordered. For the record, I paid close attention to the instructions on how to put together a piece of exercise equipment when it took forever just to inventory all the parts. Like I said, it’s my choice.
Maybe my guy attitude is an indicator of what is happening among many followers of Jesus who seem to consider the Bible as sort of like my GPS app. I find it very common for people who say that they love and want to follow Jesus, but who are open to every possible source of direction for their lives. Then, when the Bible seems to agree with all the other input, they are ready to quote the Bible. When it doesn’t agree? Then they just close the Bible and disregard what it says. Ouch! But I see it happening constantly. No wonder our sense of direction has become so cloudy.
Tongue in cheek, I might just consider a campaign to rename the Bible. I think I would call it, “Start Here!” and print that title boldly on the cover. Maybe that would clear some of the misdirection about how we make critical life decisions.
Because of issues like this, we have chosen the theme “Why Bother?” for our Stone Ridge Church Summer Sermon Series. Indeed, why bother? Because THIS STUFF MATTERS! And it all begins this weekend with a message on the Bible. I promise, you don’t want to miss it, but if you can’t be there, catch the podcast. You might be amazed to find that God’s Word bats 1.000!
