The other day after work, I was driving to my friend Kym’s house. I got on the freeway onramp and was greeted by a traffic jam. Spokane traffic jams aren’t close to what I’ve been stuck in while in LA, and yet I found myself annoyed and impatient. So I decide to get off the freeway and go another route.
This backfired on me pretty quickly. The off ramp I chose was in a part of town I am not very familiar with so I was just sort of guessing where to go next. I found myself somewhere I recognized but misjudged my lane choice. And there I was, getting on the same onramp I had started on 15 minutes before and sitting in the same traffic. I was too busy trying to figure it out my way, that I just ended up wasting gas and taking even longer.
I often try to take shortcuts and go my own way. I’m pretty stubborn and I refuse to ask for directions - whether they are from the guy working at a gas station or from God. But in the end, I usually end up getting to my destination with a lot more heartache because I decided to do it my own way instead of God’s.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.
Proverbs 3:5-6
It will probably take me a lifetime to figure this out. The bad news is that I will probably repeat something like that freeway incident next week. The good news is that I’ve progressed a little bit in patience: if this had happened a couple of years ago, I would have gotten off the freeway a second time and repeated that whole process at least one more time.
