In May 1951, my grandparents were married outside Chicago and headed south for their honeymoon, driving the Dixie Highway that ran from Chicago to Miami. The funny thing is, my grandpa was headed to Florida, but my grandma had no intention of going any further than the Smoky Mountains outside Chattanooga. They honeymooned in the Smokies and were married more than 50 years before cancer separated them.
I think life is like that sometimes. The signs all seem to point to one place, and it’s easy to forget that roads lead to more than one destination. My grandparents’ story reminds me that when you wind up somewhere other than where you set out for, it doesn’t always mean you took a wrong turn. Sometimes it means that there was another plan in place all along.
The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” Psalm 32:8
The Bible counsels us to hold our plans lightly (James 4:13-15), while reminding us that “the Lord’s plans stand firm forever; his intentions can never be shaken” (Psalm 33:11). If we cling too tightly to our own plans, we may end up in a struggle for control with the Lord. That’s definitely not the place we want to be.
It requires faith to believe that God can be trusted, that we can allow Him to direct our path and we will still end up somewhere good. That’s because often our path passes through the valley of shadows. But the thing is, the Christian life is a life of faith. That means it will be characterized over and over by situations that call for faith – that require us to trust that God cares for us no matter what our circumstances might be. There is no other way – “we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV). To rely on our own vision, our own plans, is death.
The apostle Paul initially thought the signposts of his life pointed to the Sanhedrin (Philippians 3:5). God knew the destination was the Roman Emperor’s court and martyrdom (Acts 9:15). And yet in his final letter to Timothy, he wrote, “I am suffering here in prison. But I am not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return” (2 Timothy 1:12).
Faith is the confident assurance that God can be trusted. Let our desire be not that we will know the exact route to our final destination, but that we will be full of faith as we walk whatever roads God has marked out for our journey.