THEY SAY YOU can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Speaking as an old dog, I disagree. But I will say that it can take a while before I’m willing to try a new trick. After all, what’s wrong with the old one?

Case in point. I still have a collection of paper maps in my closet and even a few in the car. You know…paper maps? The kind you get from the auto club? The kind that takes three tries to fold them back up the way they were?

I hardly use them anymore; they’re just there, ready to be used like a geographical security blanket if the need arises. These days, whenever I have to go somewhere unfamiliar, I go online and use Google Maps to plot out my route. And yes, sometimes I still print out a map and handwrite directions on it, keeping the paper next to me in the car.

But a few years ago, I was traveling out of state and scheduled to meet a friend for coffee — and inadvertently went to the wrong place (it’s a long story). The right place was several miles away, and to get there quickly, I was forced to let Siri give me the directions as I drove. I had never used Siri this way before, and was impressed with how helpful it was to have her tell me things like, “Go through this signal and turn left at the next one.”

So, this old dog is starting to use the new trick. But not all the time. I still like to study the map in advance so I can picture in my mind how to get where I need to go. I only fall back on Siri if I get myself lost. I want to actively know my destination and how to get there, not just passively have AI tell me what to do.

And there’s a sense, I think, in which the Christian life is similar. We need to keep our destination firmly in mind as we navigate the twists and turns along the way.

THE APOSTLE PAUL, as we’ve seen, prays that the Colossians would know God’s will. By this, I take him to mean that he wants them to know and understand God’s intentions as already demonstrated in the grand story of a good creation distorted by sin and now in the process of being fully redeemed. He wants them to know their place in that story, their role in God’s work, so they can live accordingly.

Here again is part of what he prays for them, this time as translated in the Common English Bible:

We’re praying this so that you can live lives that are worthy of the Lord and pleasing to him in every way: by producing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God… (Col 1:10)

Paul prays that they would know God’s will so they might “walk” in his way. That’s a more literal translation of what he says: he prays that they would “walk worthily of the Lord.” Paul is, after all, a Jew steeped in the traditions and images of the Hebrew Scriptures. We might think back to the vision of Psalm 1, which portrays life as a continuous choice between two paths. One is the path of righteousness and blessing; the other is the path of wickedness and destruction. God’s people are meant to follow the first path, and to know it through meditating on the teaching of Scripture.

To live a life “worthy” of the Lord means to live in a way appropriate to the gospel truth about Jesus. It’s not a matter of becoming worthy in ourselves because we’re doing such a good job of being super-pious people. When Paul says that he wants the Colossians to live in a way that’s “pleasing to [the Lord] in every way,” he doesn’t mean that everything we do will necessarily be pleasing. Neither God nor Jesus are like strict parents who won’t love their children unless they bring home straight-A report cards. As the New Revised Standard translates it, Paul wants us to walk in a way that is “fully pleasing” to God, while the New American Standard reads that we are to “please him in all respects.” This is not, therefore, a demand for perfect obedience, but a vision of the gospel transforming every aspect of our lives.

Thus, he once again uses the metaphor of fruit. In verse 6 as well as here in verse 10, he uses the language of “bearing fruit” and “growing.” But in verse 6, it was the gospel itself that was bearing fruit and growing, both among the Colossians and throughout the empire. Now they are the ones “producing fruit in every good work,” and their growth is “in the knowledge of God.”

In a sense, he’s brought the prayer full circle. Before, he prayed that they would have the knowledge of God’s will, so that they might walk in God’s way. But in turn, walking God’s way, producing the fruit of good and worthy actions, deepens their knowledge of God.

WHEN IT COMES to the life of faith, we don’t just set out on the road and wait for someone to tell us when and where to turn. We have to know God’s will first; we have to know the destination toward which our lives are meant to point. And navigating the road is itself a learning process, through which we come to know God and his will even better.

The metaphor’s not perfect, and in no way would I want to suggest that the Holy Spirit is at our beck and call like Siri! But I worry that in an age of AI, we are depending more and more on our devices to do our thinking for us. That’s not the way of growth, including spiritual growth. We have to know and study where we’re going.

Perhaps that’s why Paul spends so much time in his letter telling the Colossians about Jesus?