Today I went to the Northwest Ministry Conference in Redmond. The 2.5 hour commute home makes me forever grateful that I live a mile from my work. I will be fine if I never have to do that again! Anyway, I asked God if we could have our time in the car since it was going to be a super long day.
I have a new app called Waze. It is like an interactive GPS. It gives you directions to your destination, but other users post all kinds of things so you have live updates.
I was cruising along pretty well for a Friday morning. And then traffic stopped, emergency sirens were coming up behind me. Waze did a little beep and recalculated my route for me. To make a super boring and very long commute story short, my route was recalculated. I would have been totally lost on these roads I've never seen or heard of before. I just followed directions. I avoided the freeway-turned-parking lot and the accident ahead.
You see where this is going. Yesterday I posted a picture of our plan for our lives, a straight smooth line. And then God's plan. Hills, valleys, struggles, obstacles, distance, etc. He gives us strength to persevere through all of it.
What I didn't notice in that picture though, were the pitfalls that God helps us avoid. By redirecting our paths from our own plans and destination, He in fact is protecting us. While we may see it as one more frustrating detour, He sees it as part of His plan for our good.
God confirmed this two more times for me. My last workshop of the day was about Family Ministries. At the end of the class the speaker apologized that the conference planners had made a mistake. This workshop in fact was scheduled for a different time and place. I had "accidentally" attended this class. Yet I knew I was there on purpose.
The other was on the way home on 167, Waze helped me avoid several traffic headaches. All of this to say, we can trust God. When it seems like we are either completely off track or at a stand still, He will lead, or sit with us while we wait. Our job is to abide, stay closely connected and listen for directions.
The reason I mentioned the workshop above is because it was extremely valuable. I hope to write a blog about it and I don't want to forget. It was definitely a detour off the course I had planned, and I am so grateful.
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