Do You Know The Way To San Pedro?

I thought I did. Most guys hate to ask directions, and I admit to an attack of Machoism. We were returning to Joni’s sisters’ house after our second fun-filled day at Disney Land. I had made the drive successfully on Monday. Wednesday found me using the same route I successfully took on Monday. It was simple. Go north on I-5, take West 91, and then south 110 and we were home free. Child’s play—a piece of cake. We were laughing, joking and I missed the West 91 turn off.

I refer you to paragraph one. Most guys, when they discover they are lost, will do one of two things:

A. Stop the car, open the hood, and sneak a peek at the map.
B. Drive around hoping something looks familiar, or your wife discovers you are lost, whichever comes first.

It was late, so I opted for Plan B. This stretch of I-5 was not looking at all familiar. My wonderful wife of 26 years was on to me. A quarter of a century of marriage, and hundreds of miles of road trips have led us to an agreement—I don’t have babies and she doesn’t read road maps. Time to switch drivers so I could read the map and Joni could drive. We took an off ramp, pulled over, and made the switch.

I think Los Angeles is experimenting with hiding highway on ramps to cut down on Oregon Tourists. We could not find our way back to the freeway. We drove next to I-5. We drove over it, and under it, but couldn’t get back ON it. We ended up in a, shall we say, suspicious neighborhood. Here’s the picture. We are in LA, driving through a scary neighborhood, at midnight. As we drove by a school, I noticed a group of gang-like boys having a meeting. By the time we had circled the same block three times, I could tell we were now the agenda of their meeting. At this very moment a light flickered on our dashboard. It was in the shape of a car battery. Joni says, “What does that light mean?” It means we are in a heap of trouble.

The story of “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” came to mind, but these lions had headbands and tattoos. My years of seminary training came to mind and I fashioned a well crafted prayer just for this emergency. It went like this…

“GOD, DO SOMETHING, QUICK!!”

Not flowery, but effective. I love it when the Lord bails us out of our stupidity. An onramp appeared. It was even the right highway going in the right direction. We found our way home, the car ran fine (although we replaced the alternator and various other things the next day) and we made it home to Molalla.

Have you ever been on the wrong road? I’m thinking spiritually, not so much geographically. Sometimes I find myself wandering down dangerous roads. I’m sure you’ve been on them, too. They have names like, “Attitude Avenue,” “Selfish Street.” “Grudge Gulch.” In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus tells us these roads are wide and easy to find. The road that Jesus wants us to walk is narrow and harder to find, but He promises to guide us when we get lost and helps us to find our way home.

Even in LA!