Before the incredible, time-saving GPS, many of us in the U.S. relied heavily on the well-known Thomas Guide Maps. You just had to find the right page and place to pinpoint your destination. Voila! Easy travel and a safe and sound arrival!
If by chance you forgot your Thomas Guide (or worse yet, lost it), then you’d have to rely on your memory, or perhaps the advice of your traveling companion.
Most of us have experienced travelling toward a destination and realizing that we’ve lost our bearings. Consequently, frustration, confusion, anger, even bitterness set in.
Do You Know the Way to San Jose? An Anecdote
You find yourself lost on the way to San Jose. After driving around in circles like a dog chasing his tail, running yourself ragged, you find the humility and courage to pull over and ask a pedestrian for directions. But when you follow his advice, you find it’s wrong! More frustration. You wonder: Where, oh where, is my Thomas Guide?
Gas Station Attendant
The pedestrian’s advice having failed, you discern that the next person to consult is a gas station attendant. Surely, he would know the way to San Jose! You enter the gas station and humbly ask for directions.
The attendant explains enthusiastically and in great detail the route to San Jose—the distance, the streets, the lefts and rights, but another problem arises—language confusion! English is not his first language, and despite his good will and effort, you can’t make heads or tails of what he is trying to convey. Back to square one…
Finding the Solution
You spot a payphone on the side of the highway. Finally, you see the right solution! To call the person waiting for you at your destination, tell them where you are, and ask them for directions. Ring, ring! Hello?
Mission accomplished! Your relatives in San Jose explain to you in clear detail the way there. Into your car once again, this time understanding and following the correct directions, you arrive at your destination at last.
Application to the Spiritual Life
This frustrating but humorous anecdote likely compares to some experience we’ve had travelling. Getting lost due to incorrect, incomplete, or indiscernible directions is (or at least was) part of life.
But here is a question for you: how many people in the world today are still just as confused, disoriented, depressed, lost, and, so to speak, driving around in circles—only this time in their spiritual lives? As Jonah puts it, “How many people today do not even know their right hand from their left?”(Jonah 4:11)
Too many people do not know their purpose in life. To make things worse, some do not even care to discover it—that is to say, they have neither the desire nor motivation to stop, reflect, and ask themselves why they exist.
Allow me to propose, with the help of God’s grace, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, the purpose of our lives clearly, convincingly, cogently, and credibly.
We exist to know, love, and serve God here on earth and to be united with Him for eternity in Heaven. God did not need to create us! There is nothing that we can offer to Him that isn’t already His. All He wants is our love, and love must be given freely to be authentic. For this end, He gave us free will, the ability to choose Him or to not choose Him, all the while inviting us, teaching us, and desiring us to follow Him into total union.
Brothers and sisters, there is nothing of greater importance in our short pilgrimage on earth than to know, love, and serve God so as to be united with Him in Heaven.
Perhaps we have heard this message before—perhaps it means little. Ask the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother to deepen your understanding! They will help you get oriented, give you direction, and fill your life with meaning and purpose if you let them.
Photo by Diego Jimenez on Unsplash
