When We Don't Know The Way

Jeremiah 6:16 – This is what the Lord says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, 'We will not walk in it'". (NIV)

My role when we are travelling in a new city is to jiggle joyfully up and down on bumpy streets and to try to read squiggly lines on a paper map, while my husband whirls around the corners and avoids the traffic whizzing by my ears. Many a time, I've tried in vain to help him by navigating through the heavy traffic, but I'm not always successful, for about the time I find where we're supposed to be going, I lose my place on the map because a car is whizzing up the inside lane and has scared the wits out of me.

"Do you see this street on the map?" he quizzes. "No, but I've seen that gas station before," I finally answer. "I think we've gone around the block twice." Getting lost in the city is unusual for my husband. On the other hand, I've been known to go up one street and down another, hunting for the correct address. Once, in a strange city, I ended up on a country lane with mailboxes in front of the houses at a dead end, when I was supposed to be taking a short trip across town. I was lost. How could I explain how I saw about 90 extra kilometres of the city, when I should have travelled less than ten? My problem was I didn't have a navigator to point the way.

Our journey through life is like travelling in a strange city. We don't always know what roads we should take or how to navigate safely around the obstacles. Fortunately, we don't need to go around in circles or travel in unfamiliar directions. When we use the Bible as our guide, we will find clear directions for our journey.

Prayer: Dear God, in life, we work, take care of our families, and pay our bills, and so often, we get so busy that we discover we have travelled in circles and are up a dead-end road. Help us to take time to study our Bibles and learn Your plan for our lives. Amen.