Delight in the Detour

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Sunday was one of those days that had a lot of twists and turns.  The neatly choreographed schedule that I had designed was changed almost from the morning’s onset.  Nothing seemed to go as planned. Among other things, I was looking for a new chair for my home office.  My old one had given up the ghost. I went to the nearest office supply store to get a new one, but of course the one I wanted was out of stock. The store clerk called a nearby store – the only one in the vicinity that had it. After going there and having to wait again for this store clerk to bring it to the front (after I was promised it would be at the Customer Service Desk), I had my new chair and was on to the next thing. 

My husband and I had committed to buying the kids treats. Because we had to go further out to get the chair than expected, we weren’t close to the place where we were originally going.  We went to the grocery store that was on en route to home. When we got to the parking lot, it looked like Christmas Eve - not an empty spot in sight. We circled around. After almost getting backed into by someone on his cell phone and cursed out by someone who thought we were trying to take her parking space, we found a spot.  At the same time our parking spot freed up, I looked to the entrance of the store and saw a person I had been thinking about that week.

I knew in my spirit, this is NOT a coincidence.  I was meant to see her at that very moment.  We were too far back to yell out of the car window, and she was gone by the time we got to the entrance. Since I’m not on one of the main social networking sites, I looked her up on a business site. She was on there, so I in-boxed her.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Later that day, I logged back in and saw this message: I have been looking for you! Call me. We talked, and it seemed like no time had passed. It had actually been over 15 years. After speaking with her, I am more convinced than ever that this meeting was God-ordained.  I also thought back to Sunday. If everything had gone as I had planned, I would’ve missed her.

Maybe we would’ve run into each other at another time or not. It’s easy to become frustrated, annoyed, and even angry, when things don’t work out on our timelines. If we succumb to these emotions – we are likely to miss the important lesson God is trying to show us.  Instead of blaming the enemy for these detours, delays, or disruptions, we need to remain open to listening and looking for what God is trying to show us. He could be aligning us with someone who has been looking for us, or someone we have been looking for!

The bible is full of examples of these incidents. While not all delays are of God – some are because we have made decisions that have taken us another route (think Jonah). However, God can and will still use them for our good. Sometimes, it’s others who’ve caused the delays. Joseph’s brothers put him in a pit – resulting in him being sold into slavery; put to work in the palace; sent to prison; asked to interpret dreams; remembered by those in position; appointed to Pharaoh’s court; and restored to position. Finally, God takes us another route or to another place –to show Himself strong. Jesus was constantly being interrupted on his journey and stopped to heal, deliver, and restore.  When He received word that Lazarus, whom He loved, was sick, John 11:6 states that Jesus stayed two more days in the place where He was. Jesus could have spoken the word right where He was, and Lazarus would have been healed, but as He told his disciples in John 11:15: “I am glad that I was not there, that you may believe.”  

He’s at work. That detour, delay, or disruption may be exactly what He has planned, so delight in it.

Be blessed.

©2018 by Antoinette V. Barber