Don’t Forget Your Directions

Do you think God allows us to go through tests?  Do you feel like you are passing the test?  Or, do you feel like you might need to study more, maybe even get yourself a mentor?

This last Friday, hubby and I were going down South of our home to attend a training about helping people walk through the process of grief.  I was all ready on Friday night with only toiletries to put in my bag, take the direction paper from the fridge, and grab my purse as I went out the door.  However, hubby sees no need to get all excited about getting ready…after all, we aren’t leaving until tomorrow morning. :p.  So… it made it rather rushed going out the door on time Friday morning.  As we drive and are way too far out to go back, I realize that the post-it note with the name, address and phone number of the place we were staying that night down south, is not with me.  Now, I tried to think of the name of the place, but couldn’t recall it for the life of me.  I looked at recent calls on my phone because they had called to confirm.  But when I call them, they have turned it to fax-line.  As hubby is telling me that we need to have an address or name to know where to go, I’m saying, “Ya think??!!??”  I’m searching the internet to see if a name rings a bell…nothing.  It’s a pretty helpless feeling when you know the area is very busy with many conferences and you have “one chance place” to stay and you can’t find it.  I thought I recognized a name as I looked, but looking at the picture, that didn’t seem like the right one.  I prayed and asked God to open the line back up for a phone call.  I tried four other times to reach them and the same thing happened.  Finally, by the time we were about thirty minutes out, I reached them.  I got the name and address, and put it my phone maps and we were able to drive right to it.  Given that there were a couple of large conventions going on in the city, there was not another room to be had…so I was one happy lady to finally get through to them to confirm.  Now… even though it is me who has to handle all these arrangements, and usually my fault if I forget something like this, somehow, it seems like if we were all ready like I was the night before, things would have been smoother going out the door, and I would have remembered all that I needed to.  So was this another one of those lessons that I am being taught?  What do you think?

As I contemplated this whole scenario after it was over, I realized there really is a lesson here.  We go through our lives and let our circumstances dictate what is going to happen.  We don’t plan well, our time gets rushed, we aren’t prepared as we should be, and it can very easily fall apart.  We go about our life and hurry here and hurry there, going sometimes with no direction or map to help guide us get to our destination.  If we would consider the advice of seeking God in all we do, He will give us the directions and address through His Word on the way we need to go.  I won’t have to panic and try to find it myself.  If I ask Him, He will work on my behalf, just like He did to open the line up to be able to reach the place where we were staying.  We ask first.  However, we can also be like my hubby and say, I will have tomorrow.  It’s no big deal.  I will get ready then.  Well, we may not have a tomorrow.  God wants us to live in a preparative state; especially in these times.  Know where to go for direction and guidance.  Talk to the right person Who can make all things work out.  In my case, I sweat it out for a few hours as I tried unsuccessfully to reach them.  I finally prayed for the solution about thirty minutes out!  What?!?!???  It should have been my first response!  Kind of funny, isn’t it?  Even when we KNOW what to do, we try to do it ourselves instead of asking God to take care of it and then leaving it there!  The way I WAS going, we could have been room-less with a big headache on top of it.

God wants us to give it up sooner.  Why?  So He can show us that every little thing matters to Him where we are concerned.  He wants to show Himself faithful.  That grows our faith.   Note to self:  Ask God sooner so He can show you another time of His love and power to change things in my life!  Note to YOU:  Don’t wait to turn things over.  Be in the Word so you recognize Him and build trust in Him for the Lifetime Trip He has you on.  Know where you are going before you leave home.  If I had turned my morning over to Him before even getting upset over not being ready to just go out the door as I planned for us, then maybe my head would have been in the right place, and I could have avoided it all!  Our journey may look like this ring that has its ups and downs, around a mountain or two, but that journey goes up and that’s how I wear this ring!  I do like the other ring too that says, pray always, and I know my prayers go up.  What I’m learning is how quick I send my prayers up determines how free I am going to be from the stress of the journey!

Isn’t He great to teach us when we are willing to lean in to hear what He has to say.  It’s not always easy, but it is always worth it!

Until next time…

~JoAnn