”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.” 

(Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

While penned by Dickens in the 1850’s, those words may just as easily describe the 21st century. So much has changed and yet perhaps even more remains the same.

Times have been hard for many people. Scores are losing their jobs or struggling to make ends meet, marriages are on the rocks or crumbling into divorce, children are sick and the innocent dying.

Yet all is not lost. It never is. There is a drive that burns deep within humanity to push through and struggle towards hope.

For the Christian, there is always that promise that even our darkest trials will be turned around some way, somehow, in God’s timing, for a good that we may never have seen coming otherwise.

Believers quote Romans 8:28 for the comfort it brings in moments of distress. (And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. NASB) Non-believers scoff at the idea of an invisible God offering such assurance if He didn’t provide intervention for the very thing causing their distress, and many will mock the Christian crediting God with every blessing in his or her life, taunting that if true, God must also be blamed for every trial.

Faith is not irrational however, nor is tantamount to wishing on pixie dust. The line that is drawn between the believer and the scoffer is one of control, or rather the ability to surrender it. The promise in Romans hinges upon the Christian’s ability to trust. Their faith is an intellectual choice to trust in the reason that they know to be true, and a willingness to submit to God’s handling of both the events that brought them to this place of difficulty and the road ahead leading out.

It may be that the Christian has made poor choices to bring about his or her calamity but perhaps the struggle is the result of nothing more than life’s inevatibilites. No matter what has brought him or her to a place of frustration or sorrow, the Bible is clear; if they will press on by faith, in humility, and repentance if necessary, God is faithful to bring about beauty from our ashes (Isaiah 61).

It’s God’s GPS system.

You know that voice guiding your path turn by turn from a device suction cupped to the inside of your windshield?  (Mine’s a female with a British accent.)

Well, I like to think of the Holy Spirit operating in much the same fashion. After a “wrong turn,” He speaks to our hearts, urging us to make a quick “U-turn,”  (Proverbs 3:4-6) and after unforseen obstacles, He will ”re-route” our paths back on to one designed for our good and not destruction (Jerimiah 29:11).

The choice to listen and obey still remains ours.

What course have you plotted for your life? Are you willing to listen to God’s Positioning System?

 Do you have GPS story; a time when God turned a situation around for you?