Travel With Direction

If someone were to ask you to name what you love to do the most what would your answer be? Some might say reading a good book, or spending time with their family. Those are great answers and both of them are at the top of my list as well, but I would have to say that the one answer that remains consistent in my life is travel.

Traveling with Papa and Nanny will remain at the very top of my most cherished memories of my childhood. There was no distance too far and no car ride too long in the earlier years of my life. We have traveled thousands of miles together, many of which took us to one of our favorite spots in the mountains of Tennessee with our camper. This was one of papas favorite places to go. We spent many Summers together traveling back and forth from our home in Georgia to our Summer home in Tennessee where we kept our Airstream. This place will always have so many peaceful memories filled with pure joy and laughter. We set out on a 3 month journey together and traveled to 38 states, one mile at the time. I will be sure to cover this adventure in another blog, it was a trip of a lifetime.

My love for geography and maps did not start in a classroom, but in the backseat of a vehicle. Many times I would have to trade spots with Nanny so that I could be papa’s co-pilot. I am not sure how much good I did in this promoted position but there is not a day that I get into a car that I do not see myself sitting next to papa driving my imaginary bus across the country, helping him monitor the mirrors and all other traffic. I fell in love with looking at the map and trying to figure out where we were going as we traveled. I can remember spending hours looking down at the oversized atlas we kept in the vehicle and following along with my finger as I could be certain of where we were. I believe that my keen sense of direction today started during these early years of traveling.

That is what I want to take a moment to discuss with you, traveling with direction. This phrase is something that came about when we were trying to figure out what exactly to name Jessica’s travel blog called The Coen Compass. We wanted to put meaning behind the blog itself for those who were interested in reading through what was being posted. The Coen Compass is more than just writing about our favorite travel destinations or the best travel accessory, each post includes a little encouragement for your faith as well. The reason for this is because we realize that one thing that everyone could use a little more of in our world today is encouragement in their faith. Everyone wants to travel with direction. The opposite of traveling with direction is traveling lost.

Do you remember the days of traveling before Siri told you the road to turn or the lane to remain in? What about the days when the portable GPS systems were starting to make their way into our vehicles? The purpose of this tiny device with an interactive map is to give direction so that we do not end up lost. I can remember when my grandparents purchased their very first Garmin, the fun that we had trying to figure out if it was accurate or not or listening to how many times it would tell us to make a U-Turn still brings a smile to my face. One of the issues that we found out pretty quickly is that the maps were not always accurate to the changes that were being made to roads along the journey. My papa would often times insert that “she” did not know what she was talking about and he knew the better route for our trip, this would always result in about 10 different renditions of “recalculating, make a U-Turn.” There were many battles that took place between that little Garmin and Papa’s knowledge of the roads he had traveled many times.

The reason that I wanted to share this with you is because the foundation of this story remains true for so many of our lives. We love to travel, we set out on a journey full of excitement and anticipation but all of a sudden we are faced with the truth that we do not have a clue where we are going or what we are doing. We find ourselves traveling without direction. Many of us start out with great plans and even better intentions, but somehow those seem to never work out for us. We need direction.

Direction is the management or guidance of someone or something and the key word in this short definition is “management.” We live in a world today that is in search of direction but only if they are able to remain in control. Traveling with direction is not just about getting into the vehicle and putting the destination into the GPS and doing what is being suggested but it also includes waking up each and every day of our life and seeking direction from the only one who truly knows where we are going – our Papa God!

I share that along with my own story of traveling with Papa and Nanny because I realized that during the early days of GPS devices with incorrect maps that would often times tell us to turn left or right when there was not a left or right turn option, there was always one person who knew exactly where we were going, and the best way to get there – Papa.

I used to laugh at those moments because it seemed almost as if having a GPS in the vehicle with papa behind the wheel was pointless, but now that I look back on it, I am able to see the depth of what it meant for our direction. The new and modernized way of doing things is not always a bad idea, but the method needs to be tested and modified in order to become trusted. I never once questioned the direction of our vehicle all of those years on the road with papa driving. I would lay carelessly in the back seat and listen to those audiobooks (which were books on cassette tape or CD when we got really high tech) and never once question if we would make it to our destination. I would listen to papa and nanny talk about all of the places they had watched over the years being built, like the big brick church in Atlanta that I was reminded of every time we passed, which I believe has to be a minimum of 100 times over my life. I would listen to the acceleration of the engine, the click of the blinker, and the occasional pattern of the windshield wipers as we made our way from one destination to the next but never once in all of the thousands of miles we traveled did I ever question our direction, and that was because Papa was driving.

I want to take a moment to encourage you on your journey through life. I want to ask you who are you allowing to drive? Do you trust that they know where they are going? Is it you? I have realized that allowing someone else to drive (something that I still have an issue with to this day) can be more difficult for us than we realize, and I do not mean just our vehicles. I am talking about the direction of your life. Each one of us were placed here for a purpose, with a plan and yet so many do not ever live that plan out to its fullest potential. I believe that one of those reasons is because we will not get out of the driver seat and allow papa to drive.

We spend so much of our lives trying to figure out what we are doing and where we are going and the truth is that none of us are qualified to drive (I will refrain from diving deeper into that at this moment, but seriously driving is not everyones speciality). The direction that we need in our life needs to come from the only one who is qualified and able to set the plan, the purpose and the destination. God has a plan for each one of us, and our purpose in this life is to live that plan out with zeal so that He receives all of the glory and honor. The direction for our life should not be based on where we are driving but should only be where we allow for Him to drive us.

The Holy Spirit should be at the core of our travel plans. One of the biggest mistakes that we can make is setting out on yet another adventure without taking the time to run our plans by the Creator of the Universe. The Holy Spirit gives direction and guidance in all things and will provide the comfort and reassurance on the journey that everything is going to be just fine. We can travel in peace knowing that we have taken our hands off of the steering wheel of life. It sounds so easy, so why aren’t we doing it? …. Because we have not given up control long enough to realize that nobody can drive like papa can. Trust the driver long enough to experience the destination He has in mind for you. Grab your favorite pillow and warmest blanket and get comfortable for the journey. Sit by the window so you are able to see all of His creation as it passes you by in a way you have never seen it before. Listen to the sounds around you and embrace His peace that everything you are going through is part of the journey but that nothing you are going through will keep you from your destination when Papa is driving. Let today be the day that you start traveling with direction.