Yesterday I had to return something back in my old stomping grounds. As I rode my motorcycle down the highway I noticed that traffic the other direction had been reduced to one lane for road construction. After I dropped off what I needed to return, I headed back to Nacogdoches and decided to avoid the road construction. I turned off the highway onto what I remembered as a pretty smooth black top road that cut through to a farm to market highway and led into town the back way. Either things had changed or I remembered wrong.
A portion of the road didn't have black top. Part of it was white rock and the rest thick sand. Now, my motorcycle doesn't handle well in sand at all. It's just not made for it. Not only does it not handle correctly, but the fender fails to prevent the front tire from slinging dirt in my face. The next thing I knew I had to slow to about 20 mph and still had to constantly blink sand out of my eyes. Finally the road became black top again, but it wasn't so smooth. There were pot holes and ruts in it big enough to shake me to the point of pain, and there were too many to dodge.One hole couldn't be avoided because it sat right in the path I had to take across a one-lane bridge.Even though I had slowed to second gear it rattled my teeth and hurt my back.
It made me think how we often make the same mistake I made on a spiritual level. We spot something coming that will be inconvenient or difficult, and without waiting for guidance from the Holy Spirit we pick another route. Often it's a return to the roads we've traveled before, but they don't work quite like we remember or expect. The turn out to be even more difficult. dangerous and painful than what we were trying to avoid in the first place. This is even more true spiritually since when we turn off His path to go our own way, we leave the path of grace and find ourselves on our own.
Sometimes life gets hard and inconvenient. It can even be dangerous at times. There are times if we listen for direction that God will give us an alternate route around the situation. But there are also times that He wants to use that construction to do something in us. We're supposed to go through it. We may not want to or enjoy it as much. It may slow us down. But it's also the best route. When we head off down the roads of our own way, whether new or old, they never provide the safety and grace that God provides when we stay on the road He has chosen. And we often miss something He wanted to show or give us as well.
Today let us not be quick to veer off in attempt to avoid the construction in our lives. Let us rely on His grace rather than our old ways to get us where He wants and needs us to go.
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