My husband, Danny, likes to take different routes to get where we are going. He is not committed to the fastest way, the nearest and most direct route. Honestly, I think he does it intentionally sometimes just to shake us all up.
Recently, he took the kids to school. There was a bus in front of him, so he deviated from the expected way. He took a side road. He did not go by the near way. When he told me about this, I could just imagine the questions from the backseat.
“Where are we going, Daddy?”
“Are you sure you know where you are going?”
“Does this way go to the school?”
This morning as I drank tea with a new friend and chatted about where our lives were going in our present and respective nows, I thought about that car ride and those questions again. Really, what the girls were asking my husband was this:
“Wait, this is not what I expected. Has the plan changed? Do I need to be concerned?”
“Can I trust you?”
“Does this way lead to the place you promised to take us?”
And really, I think these are the questions we ask God when our now looks nothing like what we had anticipated, when the way we are going looks like it takes us farther from our goals. At least, these are the questions I believe I ask.
I find that the ideas that seem to be places of deep learning for me are often recurring themes as I move through a day, a week, a season. So perhaps not coincidentally, as I sat with my children at the breakfast table, our conversation turned to the Israelite Exodus --- that time when God made a way for them to leave slavery in Egypt to go to a “land flowing with milk and honey.” There is so much in that account that resonates deep within me.
God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines “though that was near.” He led them “around by way of the wilderness” and he went before them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. How often have I seen his presence with me in tangible ways on this wilderness journey?
Though God led them in ways they could see him, he led them right into what seemed a huge roadblock…the Red Sea. They looked from the sea to the coming storm of the Egyptian army, and they cried out! How often have I forgotten the presence of the Lord in the face of the daily storm of the mundane?
Then there is God’s response through Moses. “The Lord will fight for you, you have only to be still.” And God’s response to Moses for the people. “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.” How often have I cried out, instead of moving forward in an attitude of stillness?
You know, it’s crazy, but that day Danny did not go by the near way, he still ended up at the school. And he never jumped out of the driver’s seat and abandoned the girls to find the way on their own. The girls know again how deeply they can trust him. They know that the route can change but he still knows the way. They know he will make it to the destination he promised. And each time Danny decides to shake things up, the girls will trust a little more deeply until one day the questions may not come at all. Instead, they may just enjoy the new views and the presence of their daddy in the front seat.
And I’m praying this is me, too…being still and moving forward, enjoying the view and the presence of the One who knows the route though it is not the near way.