Yesterday, I was traveling to Massachusetts with my daughter, Cat. We went to pick up her friend and fellow mustang trainer, Sam, and Sam’s horse, Lynx. Both girls are competing in Texas—another lonnnnnnggggg journey ahead of us.
Whenever we drive, Cat plays the role of navigator, reading me the directions and helping me figure out when to turn or, when I inevitably get lost, how to find my way back to the correct road.
We’ve travelled to Massachusetts enough to know that we MUST avoid CT-15, a road that leads directly to our destination but forbids trucks, trailers, and commercial vehicles. Great, right?
The GPS constantly takes us to CT-15. I don’t understand why the GPS doesn’t have an option to avoid those types of roads (hint, hint for app developers). Cat began to get frustrated. Every time the directions re-routed, the GPS took us to ANOTHER “passenger cars only” road. Eventually, she announced that she gave up.
“Just take it, Mom!”
But I refused. I explained to her that, if I did, we could get a ticket and that ticket would result in a fine, points on my license, and an increase to my husband’s insurance. Eventually, we were routed to I-84 and guess what happened?
It shaved off 45 minutes of our journey from all of the new re-routed directions!
The obvious first question is why didn’t the GPS just tell us to go on I-84 in the first place! But it made me think that this was a great life lesson for both me and Cat.
You see, sometimes in life, the easiest way to get to a destination is not the right way to travel.
Especially in the day and age of social media, people often think that success should be easy. We cut corners. We expect instant gratification. We long for what others already have. But we haven’t looked at what they have sacrificed to get there.
Maybe it looks like other people have it easy.
But they don’t.
Sometimes we have to take a little longer road that appears more complicated or difficult in order to achieve our ultimate goals. But if you have faith, you WILL get there.
I don’t think God wants us to “have it easy” and I’ll tell you why. When we expect things without putting in the long, hard hours of work…the blood, sweat, and tears…we don’t appreciate what we get.
For so many years, I wanted to be a published author. Over forty years ago, I began writing. Literally…I was eight! That’s all I ever wanted to be…a writer. To share stories. To live in my imagination. To craft beautiful sentences from words that touched people.
It hasn’t been easy.
It still isn’t.
But I never gave up that dream. The road to get to where I was NOT the road I thought I would travel. But God led me to the right little, dusty lane that, once I began trotting along, showed me that I could reach the destination without taking the GPS given road.
Funny how things like that happen.
What do you want in life? Are you trying to take the road most travelled or are you willing to bypass the typical navigation given by society to find your own dusty, little lanes? You might be surprised that God rewards those who are willing to not following GPS directions but keeps the faith in HIS directions.