“Expected Ways, Unexpected Ways”

    Most of these messages are written early in the morning, long before sunrise.  It’s my favorite part of the day, when all is quiet, and a palpable sense of aloneness seems to enable a concentration of the heart and mind less possible at other times.

     I write these words, however, late in the afternoon.  A busy schedule today that began very early has only now allowed time to write.  This is fine, but if feels very different.  It seems late, as if I’m performing a task that should not even be attempted if not done at the usual time.  I suppose 14 years of doing things pretty much the same way each day ingrains habits that cause me today to feel off balance and out of rhythm.

    Life in a fallen world often throws us out of kilter, as it were.  We make our plans, and often execute them accordingly.  If we have a particular personality type, such devotion to detail makes deviation from the norm all the more challenging. 

     “A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

    When the Lord directs our steps against the ways and means we devise, a great opportunity for faith presents itself.  Rather than succumb to disappointment, irritation, confusion and even  mourning, born again believers must trust that the new path before us promises better things than the one we had hoped to travel.  The challenge is great, but the opportunity transcends every difficulty.  Indeed, if the expected road ahead becomes blocked, let us look for Divinely-paved byways that ultimately escort us far more surely and surely to our destination.  Our Heavenly Father charts our course along both expected and unexpected paths.  We trust Him in both, and find ourselves guided and undergirded along every step of the way.

“Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”

(Proverbs 3:5-6)