We've had some unexpected and unpleasant news recently, which has caused some emotional upheaval, and will require some re-routing in how we move forward from this point . In thinking about the fact that the path along which we thought God had directed us is now not an option, a word picture came to mind which I think is an excellent illustration of how this feels, and how we can view required changes of plans when we thought we had it figured out and things change drastically and abruptly.
When you are walking along a narrow mountain trail all the twists and turns may not be entirely visible, but you can generally see fairly well at least the first few yards immediately in front of you, and perhaps even, in the distance, the destination (or at least an intermediate destination) that you are aiming toward.
Suddenly there is a landslide ahead of you and the narrow trail you were winding along is quite simply gone. You know the destination is still ahead of you, yet to be reached, but you can't get there from here – at least not the way you originally intended to go. Now you have to search about and either find or make an alternate trail to get from where you find yourself to the destination.
That trail you find or make may bring you back to your original trail further along the way, perhaps prior to achieving that intermediate destination, or perhaps you will end up going an entirely different path to your ultimate destination, completely bypassing the intermediate destination you had your sights on.
That is sometimes how our spiritual and/or life journey can be as we do our best to follow God's direction. Sometimes we misunderstand, and God didn't tell us to go this way at all. He may eventually choose to create an insurmountable obstacle to get us back to where He wants us (He could just re-route us as we go too, but that isn't the topic of this illustration.). Sometimes Satan creates that obstacle, to get us off track, and his obstacles can be insurmountable too – at least in the short term, if there are enough allies and circumstances cooperating with him in a particular situation.
Either way, we have to re-route to move beyond that obstacle. God's ultimate will eventually WILL be done, but God's circumstantial will may come into play to get us through/past obstacles or situations that have been thrown up to thwart our intended path, for the immediate future. Sometimes that can mean that the intermediate goal we were working toward, our plan of the moment (perhaps even one we have been working toward for some time), has to be surrendered completely in order to get to the ultimate goal God has for us, whether that be a particular task, an anticipated direction or path, or a lesson to be learned.
Alternatively, the intermediate goal may still be accessible, just by a different short term route, but we may not be able to tell which will be the true state of affairs until we are well along our re-routed journey. Either the not knowing, or surrendering something we have been working toward, or both, can be difficult to deal with.
We find ourselves in that type of situation at the moment. The path we had planned, and believe we were being obedient in, is no longer an option, due to circumstances outside our control. So now we are seeking a new path, and only have a limited time in which action must be taken. We are seeking God's favor and direction in revealing the new path to us, and if you feel led to intercede for this on our behalf, we thank you in advance for that blessing. God is in control and we know He will show us the way and provide for us, but right now we are a bit befuddled, and in need of both comfort and clarity.
Blessings be upon you in your own times of re-routing, as He is and will be with us in ours.
Kathy
I recently read a discussion about learning God's way, by faith, instead of by the intellect, which is where I – and probably many of you – generally have learned to learn. One of the points that was made was that faith does not require understanding to function. This really set me on a new track of contemplation because, through most of my experience, I have relied on intellectual understanding to fully grasp something I'm learning. So how do you learn without understanding?
As I was considering this, I got a quick flash of insight I'd like to share with you. Accepting a truth by faith is choosing to believe a truth we are initially exposed to rather as a sketch or line drawing. A sketch or line drawing gives us the basis to visualize what something might look like although there may not be a lot of detail to such a drawing. We get the basic idea of the truth, like the reality the line drawing represents, and that gives us enough to grasp it, perhaps to choose to believe it, although there is much we don't yet understand. As we move forward with our sketchy grasp of that truth, experience and revelation from the Holy Spirit then fill in the details, like color and texture fill in the details of a line drawing, and eventually we have understanding. Our understanding becomes more and more complete and clear as time passes and we receive more revelation and have more experience relating to that truth, just as a picture looks more and more like whatever it is that it portrays, the more detail is added The details don't really change what we see, but they add to and enrich the image, or the understanding, of what we first saw in a very limited way.
This was a huge revelation for me. That certainly doesn't mean I fully understand (there's that intellect again) or can necessarily be completely secure in my ability to learn this way, but it gave me a new conceptualization of how to learn by faith, as God intends us to learn spiritual truths. I hope it will be helpful to you as well.
Blessings to you as we both are on the journey to learn to learn by faith, and with our hearts rather than our heads!
Kathy
I live and serve in a rural area. Actually, it's pretty good since I don't have to deal with Atlanta traffic and I'm halfway between Atlanta and Greenville, SC. Kathy and I love it here. One of the things we love is that we have a vegetable garden. Last year we had the largest garden, we've ever had. This year we doubled it. Mind you, the house sits on less than an acre of land and the garden is a small area in the back corner of the yard, so it's not big by any means but it is our garden.
One of my regular half-joking statements is "There's a sermon in that somewhere". Well, after we planted this year's garden last weekend, I posted on Facebook and tweeted on Twitter about it and made the comment, "There's a sermon in that somewhere". Several people, including my dad, made reference to the parable of the sower and the seed (Matthew 13). What I actually had in mind was Paul's writing to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3) in regards to the divisions and jealousy in the church. And I'll probably develop a sermon out of that but right now, I'm thinking about the similarity between prayer and gardening. Here's my initial take on this. I hope to add more later.
Gardening takes work – you prepare the soil, you get and plant seed, you expect a harvest. Prayer takes work – you prepare your heart, you get and plant seed – in the form of faith and your prayer, and you expect a "harvest". I asked the question in church recently, "When you pray, what do you expect?". If we don't expect anything – then why bother?
You don't plant a garden and then just ignore it. You SHOULDN'T just pray a prayer and then ignore it either.
Gardening is sometimes a group effort. We needed help from a church member to get the ground tilled, we got some composted manure from another, the plants and seeds were bought at different places, and advice and wisdom came from multiple sources: my dad, Mr. Maddox at the seed store, etc. Prayer is sometimes a group effort: we enlist the help of our friends and family to join us in praying for situations, we gather for events like the National Day of Prayer later this week, and we get advice and wisdom from saints (and sinners) who have gone before us.
If you ask several people, you'll probably get several answers about when and how to plant. If you ask several people, you'll probably get several answers about when and how to pray. It's not the content or style of our prayer that really matters, it's the One to whom we pray.
In gardening, after all is said in done, you are dependent on something other than yourself on getting results. In praying, the same thing is true.
And I think I'll end for now with one more similarity – in gardening or praying, you end up on your knees a lot 
.
Be well,
Steve
