The road you’re on is the road you need to be on
“You are on the fastest route. You will arrive…”
You know how when you’re driving somewhere you’ve never been to before or maybe you’ve been there one time but that was a long time ago and you’re kinda hazy on how to get there so you’re using, for purposes of this illustration, Google maps to guide you there and at some point you hit traffic and you’re like “What the crap, Google, this is taking forever” so you pull out your phone and start messing with the maps app even though that’s totally illegal but then all of a sudden the Google lady pops on and says reassuringly,
This route avoids a road closure on highway XYZ.
You are on the fastest route.
You will arrive at [insert exact time down to the minute].
I don’t know about you, but every time the little Google-lady whispers those sweet nothings in my impatient ear, I’m able to calm down and just accept my situation a little better, even if I wish it didn’t take so long to get to my destination.
It occurred to me the other day, when I was illegally fumbling for my phone to try to shave a whopping two minutes off some route I was on, that what the Google maps lady does for a frustrated driver is exactly what God does for us.
Therefore, Google is on par with God and AI will save us.
That was a joke, you guys.
Seriously though, here we are driving down the road of our lives with oftentimes only a vague idea of where we are going and we are trusting that God is gonna get us there. But then the road gets all gnarly—like unkempt Mad Max style gnarly—or suddenly you’re stopped in a traffic snarl and you’re like, “God, I trusted your voice to tell me which way to turn and what highway to take and apparently your voice has lead me here to this highly unpleasant situation. Is abandoning my car right where it is and proceeding on foot a feasible option for me? Cuz that’s kinda the mood I’m in at this point. ”
Or, you initially decided you didn’t want to use the God-Google voice (joke, again) and you’ve hit the traffic snarl so you humble yourself and start listening to His direction, and yet after all that it still doesn’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.
And right at that point where your despair threatens to fatally maul you, that’s when a still, small, merciful Voice comes over the speakers and says,
This route avoids wasting years and years of your life in the futility of your comfort zone/unwise tendencies towards selfishness/living as a double minded person, unstable in all her ways.
You are already on the fastest route to who God wants you to be and what He wants you to do.
Don’t worry, you will arrive despite how things look or feel right now.
The idea in a message like this, whether it’s from God or a navigation app, is to get you to relax into your current reality.1
Why?
Because in God’s overwhelmingly omnipotent opinion, there really is no faster way to get to where you are going.2 The faster/easier/sexier route doesn’t exist which means any time or effort spent looking for it is a waste. The only way through is through.
But that doesn’t mean the journey needs to be needlessly burdensome, more so than it already is, hence the calming exhortation to remain on the road no matter its condition.
For me, this is motherhood. I look at my road and think, “There has to be a better way to become the sanctified woman God wants me to be. Here, let me pull up this app…” and God is like, “You are already on the fastest route.”
Or, because I know some of my awesome readers of this motherhood focused newsletter are either currently not mothers or are sometimes-mothers (i.e. foster moms), simply insert whatever central sorrow you are dealing with right now into this metaphor.
“There has to be a better way to get there than having to deal with this frustrating road I’m stuck on.”
“You are still on the fastest route…”
Or, in the words of the Bible,
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow [relax: stop fighting the road], for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
-James 1:2-4 NLT, emphasis mine
Or here’s another one (out of the many verses that try to get us to accept our reality as being from God and therefore worth surrendering to):3
So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested [you are on the fastest route] as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world [one day you will arrive where this road is supposed to take you].
-1 Peter 1: 6-7 NLT, emphasis mine
So whether it’s motherhood, a difficult job situation, annoying husbands, wayward children, an adverse diagnosis, singleness… it doesn’t matter what the central issue is we are dealing with today.
The comfort comes from the Voice.
You are on the fastest route.
You will arrive there someday. It is timed down to the minute.
Because if God shows such exquisite care toward us that He numbers the hairs on our heads, how much more is He in the details of the sufferings He thoughtfully allows into our lives, timing them Google-like down to the minute.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.Psalm 139:16 NLT, emphasis mine
Or what about this precise little gem from Exodus:
Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions [masses of people] left Egypt.
Exodus 12:40-41 NIV, emphasis mine
You won’t be there a minute longer than you have to be for Him to work what He’s trying to work in you, and there’s a lot of rest in that. It means this road doesn’t need to take you down emotionally, even if, for right now, it feels like it’s taking down every other part of you.
You are absolutely on the fastest route.
Don’t worry, you will arrive.
So quite fighting it, turn the radio up, rest, lean in and enjoy the drive.
30-33 “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
34 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. -Matthew 6, The Message Bible
Proverbs 16:9 (NKJV): A man’s heart plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.
Easier said than done.