Assembly Required

I watched my daughter assemble stools for her counter.
Directions on the floor, screwdriver in hand, she began.
Who would have thought that small counter stools come with assembly required?
In no time at all, they were ready to use.

Thank goodness I have a handy husband.
An engineer brain handy husband.
Schematics and blueprints mean nothing to me.
Directions and road maps might as well be in another language.

I am not visual person.
I am more of an auditory person.
And that is just fine.

I remember picking my youngest daughter up from a birthday party years ago.
The party was held at one of those sport places with a myriad of activities.
The girls were going to ride go-carts, which happened to be inside the complex.
The smell of exhaust was overwhelming and my daughter began to feel sick.

She called me and asked if I could come and get her.
Absolutely.
I didn’t have a GPS at the time and relied on Mapquest for directions.
I printed them and was off, stubbornly refusing my daughter’s GPS with small thanks.

I was going along just fine until the map just ended.
The map ended nowhere near where I wanted to be.
I called my oldest daughter who is more visual than auditory.
She pulled up Google maps and talked me through the rest of the way.

Assembly required on the map updates.
Due to construction and building in the area, the map was incomplete.
I would have been stranded at the end of the map had I not called home.
A GPS is now in my car ready for use at any time.

We trust man-made maps and man-made directions without question.
We trust them until we get to the end of the map.
Then we must call on Someone who has the whole picture.
Someone who can maneuver us correctly on life’s roads.

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:3-6)

We are a work in progress.
Each day on this earth we grow older, more mature, and hopefully wiser.
Each day we have more of an opportunity to know God better than the day before.

God will never leave us at the end of the map.
God’s map, His Word, will take us to the end of our journey.
The Way is a Person.

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:5,6)

We are all under construction here.
We all need a bit of assembly.

Even with the best directions in hand there can be road closures.
Even with the best map at our disposal we need to find our Way.
We need to follow the directions that the perfect Cartographer has laid out for us.

We can trust His maps.
We can follow His directions.
We don’t want to be stranded at the end of the map, so we call Home.
We call on the One who knows the Way.

The Way of Wisdom starts out
With a step of holy fear
And it makes its way alone
By every good word that you hear

It has to do with passion
And it has to do with pain
It has to do with One
Who has both died and rose again
Died and rose again

And the Way of Wisdom is living
The Path of Peace is forgiving
Behold the Man of Meaning
Behold, He is the Lord

The way of understanding lies
In not how much you know
Where the pathway is a person
That you’ve come to love and so

You can stop pretending that it all depends on you
For it’s not how much you love
As much as how much He loves you
How much He loves you…

The Way of Wisdom beckons us
To find the end of fear that perfect love pursues
Wisdom did not come to simply speak the words of truth
He’s the Word that makes us true

The Way of Wisdom starts out
With a step of holy fear
That’s only the beginning
And there’s much more that is clear

The path leads on to love
And love is fearless in its ways
For Love Himself was not afraid
To die that we’d be saved
To die that we’d be saved

And the Way of Wisdom is living
The Path of Peace is forgiving
Behold the Man of Meaning
Behold, He is the Lord…

(The Way of Wisdom by Michael Card)

Help is on the way.
Immediate assistance from the One who has the big picture.
Assembly is required.
God is speaking His directions into our heart.