We took the opportunity to walk up the hill and tour Edinburgh Castle. Our holiday practice is to arrive at these types of sites early-ish and beat the crowds, so it was about 9.45am when we wandered through those gates. While we had purchased our tickets online and that meant we didn’t have to join everyone else in those entry queues, it did mean we missed out on collecting a free site guide. I suggested we could go back and grab one, but we weren’t sure we would be allowed back in, so we pressed on.

Our initial goal was to see the Crown Jewels, because as the day progresses more and more people flood to see these treasures worth more than we could ever hope to earn in a lifetime. The only problem is, without our map we had no idea where they were housed. The solution? Enter one of the regiment museum buildings and see if the staff either had one, or could point us in the right direction.

As we wandered around the museum exhibits I thought I had struck gold because there, lying on the ground, was a discarded map. I stooped down to grab it and eagerly opened it to find out where the Jewels were held only to be thwarted by the fact that this was a map printed for people from Brazil and as we are not fluent in Spanish it did not assist us in any way!

We made it to the gift shop at the end of the Museum where the helpful staff were able to provide us with the exact resource we were looking for. We now knew not only where the bling was stored, but where all the other attractions were to aid our explorations. We headed to our desired destination and were able to capture glimpses of these Scottish symbols of monarchy without much delay, and congratulated ourselves as we toured the rest of the castle when we saw the queue for entry to the display only grow larger and larger as the day progressed.

It made me smile as I reflected about the importance of the map to guide our steps today. Even one that looked like a suitable solution ending up proving useless as it wasn’t able to impart the information we needed to succeed in our endeavour.

I think about the similarity to the map we need in life to manage successfully. There are plenty out there that offer the promise of a solution, but fall short. For me, the best map I use is the Bible, God’s word and teaching. Without it, I am at a loss as to where to start and how to live most effectively. My recommendation is, don’t live life without it!

Be blessed.