Point your heart to Jesus and eventually you'll find him

​I was a little nervous driving home from my race last Saturday. My phone was rapidly dying at the same time I was depending on it to give me directions to the house.

I started wondering, out in the middle of country back roads, what am I going to do if the phone suddenly stops rattling off the directions I'm clinging to?

Just then, I happened to look down at my dashboard.

As if some divine answer to my wondering, I saw the letter S. The letter that let me know I was traveling south.

Well, that's it, I thought. I know home is south. If I keep driving this direction, I'll eventually get there.

I had a friend who once told me she wanted to badly learn more about Jesus. She said, some days I don't know how to exactly follow him, and so some days I don't know if I really am.

I'll never forget what she went on to say. It's one of the most beautiful - yet in some ways sad things - I've ever heard.

She said, I guess I just try to make sure my heart is pointed in the right direction. I just try to point my heart to him and follow and I hope one day that will be enough.

I think the sad part of that hit me first. The sad part was that many Jesus followers - and I'm quite sure that includes me - had made her think following Jesus required step by step directions. Turn here, not there. Do this, not that. Vote for him, not him.

In some ways, I'd contributed to making her feel like her phone had died - that she no longer had access to her directions to Jesus.

Yet, she did. In many ways she had the directions memorized. And when she said, I just try to make sure my heart is pointed in the right direction, following Jesus took on a whole new direction in my own life.

This friend, you could always find her somewhere loving other people. It's like she was always looking down at the dashboard of her life and seeing a big L.

Love.

I guess she figured as long as I follow Love I'll get where I'm going sooner or later.

You know, 13 times in the gospels, Jesus says follow me. The invitation didn't come with a fancy app or an oversized map. It came with love - overwhelming love. A love so big that once our hearts were overwhelmed by it, and overflowed towards him, we'd never be able to miss the big L on the dashboard of our lives.

Maybe that was Jesus' way of saying you don't need to memorize me to get me. Or to get TO me. Just love.

And if you love long enough, sooner or later you're going to find me.