Proverbs 16:17 NIV:
The highway of the upright avoids evil; those who guard their ways preserve their lives.
Do you feel the same as I do about road trips this lately? You get in the car for a simple drive to a nearby city, a trip you have taken for years, and their is a detour! Well, you say to yourself, that is the price you pay for better roads! The next day you go out on an errand again, and add 10 minutes to your drive time for the detour. This time the road is blocked off as expected, but the detour you took yesterday is also all dug up and you are being routed to another…detour. There seems to be no way to predict where or when the detours will occur, and no way to anticipate their duration. One road in our area was blocked off all season because a storm overfilled the drains and they must wait until the water drains naturally! (Or something like that.) Infrastructure money is needed, but when it comes we must be prepared for a detour maize, and many delays!
There are detours we are offered in our daily spiritual lives that are beneficial for us, and detours that will take us down paths we don’t want to go. Let me elaborate. A young woman I know has a beautiful voice. She loves the Lord and sang in the church choir, then on the worship team. She took voice lessons, practiced with her gift of song whenever and wherever she could, always giving God the glory. A local talent scout heard her amazing range and asked her to audition for a little show he was producing. She was star struck and agreed immediately without asking many questions. When she arrived at the meeting place for a ‘tryout’ she was greeted by very rude and abusive people who did not know, or care who she was. The place was what we would call a ‘dive’, and she was not treated with any respect. In fact, she was treated with disdain and abuse. Because of her youth, inexperience, and strong desire to sing, she tolerated the treatment. This was the beginning of a detour that took her on a long and sad road to alcohol to numb the pain, an unwanted pregnancy with a man she did not love, and even her singing talent had become raspy from the cigarettes and abuse. That was not a beneficial detour. It was a detour from her singing gift that could have been a blessing to so many people who needed to hear a positive message of hope. All the anguish could have been avoided if she asked for guidance before she made the decision to go down that detour.
Other detours can be very beneficial for our spiritual lives. Take for example the detour another young woman took when she found herself in a precarious position. She had been exposed to the drugs and drinking lifestyle at a young age, yet when she was offered that road, she took a detour. A friend had invited her to church, and an alternate lifestyle. She saw in this young man, the church and the people there something that she had never seen before! She heard about the judgement of God all her life, but in this church, she saw and felt the LOVE of God. It was not long before she took a ‘detour’ from the home life she was raised in and went down a new road. A road filled with love, joy, peace, patience, goodness and quietness. It has made all the difference in her life then, now, and in her future. She eventually met, and married a wonderful man in that church. With God at the head of their home, they knew they would be just fine. They raised 2 boys based on the same Biblical values, and now enjoy relationships with them, their wives, and their four grandchildren. She looks forward to that home Jesus said He went to Heaven to prepare for her! It has been a blessed life.
On the journey called ‘life’ many detours will interrupt our plan. Be sure you investigate the destination of that detour, before you turn onto the path that may take you longer and further in the direction you never wanted to go! Choose your detour with care!
Please let me know if you can guess who this was on this detour!
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