Detour

Detour

Those bright orange signs with the bold arrows that say “Detour”? Those arrows are deceptive. The way back or out or across is seldom a simple straight line or even a neat, ninety-degree turn. Detours meander. They can leave you lost before the way is found again.

A recent drive to a downtown courthouse started out uneventful enough, and I knew a back way I believed would avoid any further traffic snarls. But before I was halfway there, the street was abruptly shut down in a knot of cranes and barricades and huge mounds of blasted asphalt. Detour!

For fifteen minutes I meandered east, then north, then west before I could go south again. I went through neighborhoods I didn’t know existed on streets whose names I’d never heard. I followed the signs placed periodically that didn’t seem accurate, and I finally arrived at my destination, on time.

On another trip, a traffic accident on a major feeder road sent me searching for a new way home. I wanted to go east on the freeway, but police sent me west through a residential neighborhood. Every detour I tried put me on the same clogged feeder again. Three times. For the next hour, I traveled in a half-mile series of circles. Finally, I took a toll road in the wrong direction, paying $$125 to bypass the accident. When I finally turned onto my street, I saw a possum sitting not ten yards from my driveway. I prepared to detour again, but as I slowed down, it turned and slowly lumbered across the street toward a neighbor’s house. (Thank goodness.)

I’m sure I’d never before taken either of the routes just described, and I likely won’t take them again. Yet twice in less than a week, I’ve been lost and surprised only a few miles from home.

Is your way crooked? Are the streets unfamiliar? The lights glaring? The company odd? Have faith. Steer around confusion, believing a sovereign hand will guide you. God knows the way because he is the way. Trust him all the way home.

It is You who blesses the righteous man, O LORD, You surround him with favor as with a shield.

Psalm 5:12, NASB