GPS is recognized as the acronym for Global Positioning System, an amazing gridwork of 31 functioning satellites that allow very accurate position and time information for anyone with a receiver.
gps is a new acronym I have been thinking about that orients the user to true evaluation of the source of good. gps stands for gracious providential serendipity. Grace is unmerited favor, or as I like to say, “getting what you don’t deserve”, compared to mercy, which is “not getting what you do deserve.” Providence is divine guidance and provision. Serendipity is “the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for” (1) So, unmerited guidance or provision in an area unsought for is gps. God knows our need and desire and frequently graciously provides for us apart from our knowledge.
Several times recently I have been in utter need of knowledge and discernment regarding what I was doing. I prayed for clear answers. In the sense of seeking an answer, the guidance was definitely sought for, but the answer was several times surprising in content, delivery, and source. God is indeed gracious; He is sovereign; He has all knowledge and all power. I am constantly in need of His guidance but especially cognizant at the moment of that fact with significant decisions on the near horizon. I need some good gps signals.
CreatorWorship 
Murphy to Manteo
Posted in Analogy, Cultural commentary, General, tagged Analogy, Sayings on March 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I had a discussion with my brother recently about a camping trip that he and his wife took to Murphy, NC. He asked if I knew where that is, since I lived in NC for a number of years. “Oh yes,” I replied, “As they say, “From Murphy to Manteo”. By that ‘they’ mean the full length of the state or applying to everyone in NC (1). In Tennessee where I have returned to after all those years in WNC, they say “Mountain City to Memphis” to mean across TN (2). Are there other states or countries that use this code of place names to mean all of the territory? And what is the origin of this type of phrase? Is it the Bible? Nine times in the Old Testament the writers refer to the full extent of Israel in a way similar to the following: “Then all the sons of Israel from Dan to Beersheba, including the land of Gilead, came out, and the congregation assembled as one man to the Lord at Mizpah.” (Judges 20:1) Dan was not on the northern border and Beersheba was not near to the southern border, even less so than the 4 “M” towns of TN and NC, but it meant all of the territory or all of its people. If that is not the source of this turn of phrase, then is it somehow baked into our perception to use location names over the word “all” to designate the full extent of a territory? Do any of you know of places names representing all of you territory where you live or have been?
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