My husband and I just came back from a relaxing and refreshing few days in the country. I am talking real country—cornfields, forests, show pig farms, posted signs for squirrel hunting, deer, darkness with stars and quiet. It’s a bit strange to this city girl that all this exists just over an hour from Wheaton.

What's strange to me is how quickly I lose my sense of direction in all that wide-open space. I can locate the rising sun, but it doesn’t feel like real east to me as in the lake is always east. That east. Miles are meaningless to a person who goes by the number of streets or traffic lights or markers in route to a destination.

I tend to give people specific markers to look for—“Okay, the bank time and temp sign is on the left and our street is on the right. It may or may not be working, but you know what I mean. If you go through the traffic light and see a Walgreens, you’ve gone too far so turn around and go back one short block from the traffic signal and turn left at the bank sign.”

Out in the country, it’s hard to be that specific about cornfields, at least for me. Hence, our recent heavy reliance on Siri for directions, and for comic relief. The directions to the short ten-minute drive to town were straightforward. But we didn’t trust ourselves to remember which way to turn at which cornfield on the way back.

“What did Siri just say?” said my husband who was driving and not staring down at his phone which was programmed with a cheerful Aussie.

“He said to turn left at ‘four-thousand and six-hundred and fifty street,” I choked back my laughter. I figured that the length of the street sign alone would work well as a marker. The street sign was short, sweet and well-placed on the corner: 4650 Street.

Old paper maps from my childhood seem better in some ways; folding and unfolding them as a child was an entertaining puzzle. And wouldn't my father have preferred my know-it-all eight-year-old voice from the backseat to an automated voice from a phone, something that would have seemed right out of H. G. Wells.

But even on this trip, there were times we didn’t rely on Siri, especially when we saw a handwritten sign: “Farm fresh eggs.” We made a sharp turn into the driveway and spotted another sign “Drive on up and turn around to get your eggs.” The best sign was taped to the blue and white cooler: “Eggs inside. Thank you.”

By now, on our detour to get farm fresh eggs, Siri was squawking “Proceed to the route. Proceed to the route. Proceed to the route.” Imagine what we would have missed if we did proceed to the route.

When we were outside the car, walking on a trail without our phones, we relied on trail markers. Even then, one said to turn left, so we went right just to see where the path would take us and we saw a herd of deer along the creek.

There are days I wish life came with its own personal Siri or had a few more markers for me to follow. I could type in “heaven” as the end destination, hit go and then take the most direct, detour-free, least painful route to get there.

Instead, life comes with the Redeemer, who doesn’t need our help to program our journey to heaven. It was set before we were even created. Jesus doesn’t hand us the latest device and leave us to our own devices to figure things out. He gave us his Word so we can know him, love him and follow him.

Often, though, God diverts our path to discover things we'd miss with just a straightforward route. Along the way, we turn this way or that and find eggs or deer and maybe even a hurt Samaritan along the side of the path.

Jesus is the shepherd who guides us through detours of green pastures and dark valleys. He knows that the best route home to heaven might be a twisting, turning detour, which he delights in showing us that it was a smooth path after all.

Jesus is better than Siri. He doesn’t just say to proceed to the route; he is the way, the only route, the truth, the path and the trail and the trail makers all in one, the life, taking us all the way home to heaven.