A few months ago, I took my twin daughters on a college visit about 9 hours from home. The trip was long but worth it.  On our trip back, we were making great time and were scheduled to make it home by 10:30 pm, when out of nowhere the traffic on the interstate came to a COMPLETE stop. We sat there for about half an hour expecting the traffic to start moving again at any time– but we were at a dead stand still.  Then I noticed that I was right at the exit to go another direction where I could avoid the trouble up ahead.  But I had never been that way before and I was very unfamiliar with it.  I knew that my navigator could talk me through it (with his great British accent), but I was scared.

Yet another half hour passed, and I was still in the same spot and still contemplating whether to take the unfamiliar exit or to wait.   And I knew as I sat at this intersection that God was showing me a picture of the intersection at which my husband and I were in life.  We could travel the way we always had, or we could go a different route.  Other people had driven that road– but I had never been this new way and didn’t know what to expect.  Was I willing to be lost a little?  Or confused?

Fear got the best of me on my road trip, and after an hour or so when traffic started crawling forward, I passed my opportunity to exit. Consequently, we ended up sitting in one spot for TWO HOURS AND 36 MINUTES!!  And as the time ticked off, I became determined that in my own life I would take the new route presented to me– I would not let fear of the unknown and the opinions of others keep me from taking a different route.  But I know my navigator will “be right there, local and on the job, urging me on whenever I wander left or right: ‘This is the right road. Walk down this road.’”  (Isaiah 30:21 MSG)

BTW-  Remind me to tell you about the burned-out car we passed when the traffic finally started moving.