How many of my mamas have driven in a foreign country? On our first ever trip to Spain, my hubby and I rented a car to explore the eastern half of the country. I thought all Spanish driving was created equal that is until we exited the highway. You enter many towns that are older than Jesus’ time on earth. These towns have the narrowest streets you can imagine; I hesitate to even call them ‘streets’.  On several occasions we found ourselves in narrow, one-way, street mazes. Our rental car was the rat looking for the cheese at the end of the road.

It was during our narrow, one-way, street maze adventures that I first fell in love with my phone navigation.  I didn’t know it was possible to love an inanimate object. You may laugh, but if you ever experience a medieval maze trap, you will understand. I knew as long as I could hear my navigation’s voice, we would find the cheese at the end of the road!

Fast forward to this year. We rented a car again, this time to explore the southwest corner of Spain! I have to confess, before leaving on vacation I did spend time pulling up road maps, and travel routes for the towns we were visiting. I wanted to try and minimize my exposure to the narrow, one-way, street mazes. It was an exercise in futility. Mamas, learn from me, you can’t control your way to comfort.  I had to put my big girl pants on, and just accept the unknown route chosen by the navigation. I had to trust that my navigation would find the cheese at the end of the road.

We had a late start picking up our rental vehicle from Seville, and we were excited to get on the road. A little too excited, as I was not fully prepared to navigate out of Seville.  My hubby had his phone navigation set up, but I didn’t have a chance to set mine…  I KNOW what everyone is thinking… WHY would you need two navigations? My hubby uses upgraded satellite navigation, and I prefer my simple, out dated street view navigation.  

Initially I had to use hubby’s navigation since it was the only one cued up. I quickly remembered why I didn’t like his.  This upgraded version doesn’t have as many voice prompts as mine. When you are a nervous navigator like me, I need a lot of reassurance. His navigation also uses kilometers to countdown upcoming directions, and do I really need to explain why this would be problematic for me?  As I attempted set up my navigation, it kept auto-correcting to another hotel name. Naturally this made me doubt that my navigation had the correct final destination. However, when I compared the two routes side by side, it LOOKED like both were going to the same destination. Since I still couldn’t fully trust mine, my solution was to keep both navigations running! What could go wrong?

We were headed south to Cadiz, a coastal town about 75 miles away, (Or as my hubby’s navigation would say, 120.7 kilometers). Cadiz is accessed via 2 different water bridges on the east and west ends of the town.  In the beginning, both navigations agreed we needed to cross the eastern bridge.  I liked this route because we stayed on main roads and it was a straight shot. As we got closer to the bridge junction, conflicting directions emerged.  My navigation said left, and hubby’s navigation changed to right.  Hubby chose to go right.  Once we committed, and took the exit, we were no longer going the easy direct route. Western bridge, here we come. Now we were headed to one of the oldest cities in Europe, and no longer on the straight and direct path. HELP!

One might expect that after this first issue with the dueling navigations that I would wise up and turn off my back up navigation. But that didn’t happen mamas. As a result, we continued with a few additional detours because of my inability to release hold of MY navigation, MY safety net, MY trusted voice.

In the end, we made it to our hotel, but our route was anything but direct. My dueling navigation fiasco, took us on a longer scenic journey with multiple detours and wrong turns.  But mamas, do you know what the extra detours taught me?  Navigation still got me to the hotel.  Being forced to get off the main streets, and seeing that the inward roads were not as scary as I remembered, really eased my apprehension. This also helped me in handling all the future navigational curveballs that came our way. 

All that aside, this dueling navigation experience forced me to look a little deeper at myself. I realized I am not always living God’s best, because I won’t let go of my obsolete, comfortable, outdated, safety net.  Much as I try, I can’t control every detail of my life. I need be faster at releasing hold of my back up plans and fully committing to God’s direction.

Mamas, will you join me and purge your back up navigation? Lets not allow dueling navigations to confuse God’s chosen path for us.