WHY THE BUMPY ROAD?

I prayed for and expected a level path when I started on Your Way. “Teach me Your way, O Lord, and lead me in a level path...” (Psalm 27:11). The Way hasn't turned out as I expected. Why so many detours? 

“Make Your way straight before me” (Psalm 5:8). That doesn't seem to be such a difficult request. It appears to be taking so much longer to get to the goal You showed me. “For You I wait all the day...” (Psalm 25:5). I don't mean to be impatient, but sometimes it's like I'm wandering with the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness. I don't think Your clock is in sync with mine.

Hills and valleys, ups and downs. It makes me dizzy. It feels as if I'm on a see-saw or a merry-go-round. Didn't You promise that You would “make the crooked ways straight and the rough places smooth?” That's more to my liking.

People in the know say that You draw straight with crooked lines. My ways are certainly crooked enough as I follow You. I was under the impression that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Perhaps my tape measure is different from yours? I'm becoming kind of weary with the length of life's road and it's bumpy condition.

From my perspective it seems that all these road blocks in my path aren't necessary. When You tell me the direction You want me to go, I'm willing to go. I'm eager to obey You, and I quite expect to get there in record time. I started out well but before long something always hinders me and I have to change course. This is how it goes: I am under the impression that I am following You obediently when a door opens before me—but then the door suddenly closes and I have to look for another way to go where You want me to go.

Didn't I hear You clearly? Why do You lead me to doors that always close? Sometimes the path You ask me to take leads through the water, sometimes through the fire, sometimes through the flood. I would rather have gone around those useless and painful obstacles.

All of these stops and starts and detours and delays waste time in my estimation as I'm trying to reach Your Destination.

Oh, You have a more up-to-date *GPS than I do, Lord? But the Destination is the same? It's the journey between Start and Finish that You have planned differently? You have a purpose for what seems to me an unnecessarily bumpy journey? You are concerned with my response and my trust in You when I encounter all these adverse life-road conditions? Yes, I hear You, Lord. I'm trying to understand:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Yes, I hear You, Lord. Loud and clear. I'm trying to understand. Lead on, O King Eternal!

*GPS aka GOD'S PLAN is SUPERIOR!