It was a silly thing to do. Rather than packing the car neatly, my friend and I just threw our stuff in the trunk and the back seat. Little did we know the laptop computer case was resting on the back of the console, pressing in the cigarette lighter. While we wondered why the CD player wasn’t playing very well, it never occurred to us that we had a problem. Then we stopped for supper.

    No interior lights, no door locks, no retractable antenna, no instrument lights. Yikes! What’s going on here? Then we found it. The cigarette lighter had been mashed into its socket for three hours. Of course the fuse had burned out in about thirty seconds.

    It was now dark and we had another 90 miles to our destination with only one town in between. So I found the fuse box and went into Walmart to get replacements. We replaced the fuses, but it didn’t help. “Must be that big silver 12 volt fuse,” we decided. Back into Walmart. They didn’t have that kind of fuse. “Guess we’ll just have to try to get there.” Thankfully we did.

When all else fails, pull out the owner’s manual.

    The next day, I went to an auto parts store to get one of those big silver fuses. “Not a fuse, really, it’s a circuit breaker,” the guy said. Didn’t matter to me. I got one and tried it. Didn’t work. “Yikes!”

    When all else fails, pull out the owner’s manual. Finally, after doing some reading, we found out that there were another set of fuses located under the glove compartment. With a simple phillips head screwdriver and 2 minutes, we had the fuse replaced with a standard 15 amp fuse, just like the one we got at Walmart.

    What’s the point to all this? Just a simple reminder: when all else fails, read the directions. Even better still: before all else fails, read the directions.

    You will find in Heartlight a daily verse for your Bible reading along with a meditation and prayer. Nothing fancy, just a way to tune your heart to God. You will also find a daily Bible reading plan that will take you through the whole New Testament, all 150 Psalms, and the book of Proverbs in one year. I encourage you to “read the directions” before you blow a fuse. It makes traveling life’s road a whole lot easier!

P.S. — A friend in my Bible study group says that in addition to the regular reading, he reads the chapter in the book of Proverbs which corresponds to the day of the month—e.g., August 22 is Proverbs 22. Not a bad idea since Proverbs is filled with all that good advice about living.