Using a GPS device In Northern New England can lead an unwitting driver astray. Natives know the roads in their locale well, discerning which ones are navigable in a small passenger car, and which are not. And they understand the limitations that mud season places on unpaved, rut-filled mountain backroads. A GPS only understands the shortest distance between two points. Occasionally a chagrined flatlander must stop and ask directions from a native who often gives terse advice that begins with, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Everyone makes choices in life. Sometimes on that journey, they realize that what they thought was the quickest way to get what they wanted was actually nothing more than a dead-end road. Sometimes the route leads only to disaster.   What we really want is to choose the past that leads to heaven. Sadly, some people never figure out they’re on the wrong road and will never get there. Christians grieve when we see people like that. We picture the Lord standing there saying the same thing that the candid, implacable back roads native says to the lost traveler: “You can’t get there from here.”