Be honest: Has life turned out pretty much the way you expected? No major changes in direction, just about everything going according to plan? If that’s the case for you, congratulations. You’re in a very small minority – perhaps the only one.
Then there’s the wit and “wisdom” of Yogi Berra, the iconic New York Yankees’ catcher who once quipped, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Poet Robert Frost stated it a bit differently, perhaps more profoundly when he wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
Looking back over the course of my own life to this point, I’ve encountered quite a few forks in the road. And I’d like to think I’ve taken at least a few roads less traveled, although admittedly not always of my own choosing.
There’s no way I could have predicted the course my life and career would take: Where I would start going to college, where I’d end up, and that journalism would be my final major. Spending a decade as editor of community newspapers. Overseeing publications for several parachurch ministries and non-profits. Interviewing dozens of “Who’s Who” folks while myself qualifying only for “Who’s He?” Writing not just a book or one magazine article, but many.
Most unexpected has been the spiritual journey I’ve been on, especially over the past 40-plus years. For whatever reason, I always believed in God. Maybe it’s because, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,” as Ephesians 1:4 states. However, in my early years I knew nothing of that. Aside from Sunday church attendance, I lived as a practical atheist, busily doing my own thing, trying to do life on my own terms. Except during times of crisis, when in my “foxhole faith” I’d remember to call on God. Once the crisis passed, it was back to captaining my own ship.
Then in my early 30s I encountered a pastor – a former journalist – who excelled at presenting biblical truth in ways that were both practical and relevant for my life. Through His teaching the Scriptures came alive. For the first time I realized the Bible was not as I would have termed it then, “a manual for preachers,” but God’s guidebook for living. Who knew it would become the spiritual GPS for my life?
The complexities and convolutions of life can be confounding. We’d all like to believe we’re in control, but time and experience reveal that’s an illusion. Another poet, Robert Burns, summed it up well: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” What then are we to do? Gnash our teeth in frustration? Sit in a corner and pout? Shake our fists in anger because luck, fate – or God – won’t allow things to work as we think they should?
There was a time when I’d do one or more of those things. Thankfully, one of the key lessons along my spiritual trek has been that Father knows best – our heavenly Father that is, not the affable TV character portrayed by actor Robert Young in the 1950s. As Proverbs 20:24 phrases it, “A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?”
Just when we think we’ve got things figured out, God changes them around because He’s got a better idea. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan and set goals. It doesn’t mean if God gives us a vision for something we shouldn’t pursue it. But we need to understand, as the Lord declares in Isaiah 55:9, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
When following Jesus Christ, we must learn to be flexible, adaptable. We need to write our goals and plans not in pen, but in pencil (with good erasers). Unlike the “long and winding road” that left the Beatles standing and waiting years ago, in God’s time His road takes us directly to where He wants us to go. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
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