Going Back The Way You Came

Going Back the Way You Came

My rather addled sense of direction is well known among family and close friends. I’ve taken trains the wrong direction, gone to the wrong airport, overshot countless exits, and once famously managed to get lost between Bronte and Ballinger, Texas. (If you could refrain from looking these two towns up, my illusion of competency might remain intact for just a while longer.)

Sometimes I get lost because I’m not paying attention. Or things start looking familiar that actually are not. I’ll imagine I’ve already been at an intersection or a wide space in the road and get a weird but unfounded sense of déjà vu.

Once I even managed to get lost hiking by myself. Not scary lost. Just annoying lost. I was in a familiar spot on trails I’d hiked before, but some of the old markers had been replaced. A mile and a half up to a bluff with a fabulous view I encountered no problems. But coming down I reached a three-way fork and could not, for the life of me, remember which way to turn to get back home, and I chose wrong. It was midmorning and very overcast. When I realized I’d made the wrong choice, there was only one surefire way to correct it: go back the way I came. So I did. And although my hike took far longer than I’d planned, I did find my way home.

Sometimes God in his mercy takes me back the way I came, letting me pick up where I turned awry or missed the marker I should have seen. This doesn’t seem like progress, but it almost always is. When I go back the way I came, I can make a different choice and see a different outcome. And here’s the other tender thing God has taught me: going back the way I came doesn’t just make the desired destination possible, it allows me to see the way there with new eyes, alert to what I might have missed before.

Are you a little, or even a lot, lost? Could it be time to consider going back the way you came? The way may be long and tedious, but your Guide is very, very good, and he always means to lead you home.

Lead me down the path of truth.

Psalm 25:5, MSG