No Shortcuts

After receiving a message from an old high school friend about meeting for lunch, I looked up the restaurant on my cell phone maps app, since I had not been there before.

“What? This can’t be right!” Five hours and twenty minutes from my house to the restaurant, according to the map service. My friend lives less than an hour from meI know this isn’t correct. I thought. Using a different app, I looked up the address to find out that the restaurant was less than a ten-minute drive from my house.

Technology is great, when it works; when it doesn’t, one can find themselves scrambling to recover. Sometimes, when we go to God for “direction,” His response can look like my map experience. Many years ago, I prayed for God to intervene into a personal situation. I was young in my faith journey at the time and thought I knew exactly how He would respond. When God did not follow “the plan” as I had believed He would, my emotions went into a free-fall. Spiraling out of control, I cried, begging God to help me understand what seemed like His betrayal. But God was only beginning to reveal to me how His sovereignty is not subject to human approval.

Friend, God’s ways are not my ways, or your ways. We may look at our spiritual “map” and see a different way to navigate the road than the direction God is taking us, but He is not wasteful in any way. One day, on this or the other side of heaven, God’s good and perfect purposes will be made clear. Until then, trust Him.