A New Direction

A man's heart plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

It’s hard to believe, with today’s temperature estimated to hit almost 90 degrees, that we were in the midst of winter just a few short months ago.

Today as I was clearing the memory card on my camera, I came across some photos I had taken one beautiful winter afternoon, following a peaceful but heavy snowfall. The kids and I had been driving through a park, admiring God’s lovely artwork in the snow-covered trees, and I couldn’t help but attempt to capture some of the gorgeous scenery with my camera. The kids laughed at me as I stopped several times, right in the middle of the road, to jump out of the car and run up and down the slushy street, snapping photo after photo of the trees God had used as the canvas for his masterpiece.

The beauty of it all was breathtaking. The way the snow appeared to sit oh-so-perfectly balanced on the otherwise naked branches of the trees; the way the white-covered ground blended itself almost seamlessly into the white-gray sky; the way the trunks of the trees turned themselves into jagged branches, which reached carelessly in every direction until disappearing into the backdrop of the ground-meeting-the-sky.

I couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful.

And then we hit a road block.

Apparently in the midst of the peaceful snow storm, a tree had come down. The weight of the snow on its branches appeared simply to be too much for its somehow weakened frame to hold, and it had fallen right in the middle of the road on which we were driving.

We were forced to turn around.

I was a little disappointed. I was looking forward to continuing to take in the beauty I was sure would continue down the road which I had chosen to take. I was annoyed at the obstacle in front of me because it was preventing me from going where I wanted to go.

But upon turning the car around, I noticed something incredible. The back-sides of the trees, which had been hidden from me before due to the direction I had been travelling, were as beautifully snow-covered as the branches above them!

Had I continued in the direction I had initially chosen, I never would have seen the opposite side of them. But the obstacle in my path forced me to choose a new direction, and because of that, I was blessed with a new perspective!

And it hit me.

How often does God do this to us?

How often does God call us to travel in a new direction by allowing us to encounter obstacles in our lives?

Oftentimes we call out to him – sometimes in annoyance at minor inconveniences, and other times in agony over more devastating situations – asking him why he allows these things to get in the way of the plans we’ve made for our lives.

But God sees the beginning and the end. He sees what we do not. And when we humble ourselves to God’s redirection, sometimes we are amazed to see things from a new perspective, which we may have never before considered. Our eyes become opened to things we never would have seen, had we not been forced to turn around and choose a new path.

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path. (Psalm 119:105)