Backroad Seasons of Life

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Driving through backroads can be intimidating; often there are no signs, lines or enough space for two cars. Our life journey is much like driving the backroads. We come into this world on a single-lane road and go out the same way – alone. The forward movement of our lifetime takes us onto freeways, curves, sharp turns, dead-ends, roundabouts, and sometimes into a ditch or two. Each of these become the map of who we are becoming but our choices at each turn are pivotal.

This amazing road of life brings with it relationships that I am greatly thankful for. It includes an ebb and flow of many individuals – those who expand our lives, teach us life lessons, guide and encourage us, as well as those that take us onto the infinite roundabout. We are allowed to share life with them, even if it is only for a brief time. However, people must come and go; it is part of growing into who God has created us to be.

We seldom drive the full course of our road with the same people, for ultimately, they too, have their own road to navigate. Seasons of life change all of us. With those changes you will suddenly find those you have previously driven with, choosing to take a curve or sharp turn that you are not called to take.

If you know God’s plan, His direction and call on your life this presents a decision. Do I go along with them or do I not? Do I go left or do I go right? During these times, this decision is vital – your ear must be tuned not to your emotions but to the clear voice of Holy Spirit – for this decision may lead you into the ditch, or set you on a freeway. Your choice may require a sacrifice as to who continues on your road. This choice is not easy to make, it may require saying goodbye to travelers you love and have called friends, but the ultimate choice is “what does God want for me?” To ignore the “road closed” sign that stands in your path will drive you to stagnation in a ditch, which is not God’s plan.

Allow the process to move you into all that God has called you too, even if that path places you on a single-lane road for a time. Trust that the single-focused road ahead will open divinely-delegated assignments on backroads where distractions dissolve and commonality with the voice of the Father become your primary GPS.

Jeremiah 6:16 Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.: But they said, “We will not walk in it.”