OK, full confession here. I am extremely challenged directionally. If you and I were driving together and you told me to turn north, my response would be, “OK Lewis and Clark do you want me to turn at Chick-fil-A or McDonald’s?” Don’t be giving me this north, south mumbo jump, whatever nonsense.

MapQuest used to be my friend and I’m very grateful we don’t have to print those out anymore and can use the map on our phone. However, have you noticed something when you use the GPS map on your phone? When you put in your destination and you start driving, if it detects things that will make your drive longer or that are in the way, it’s going to recalculate.

You could be driving along and all of a sudden it will say “recalculating.” And you are now taking a different route to your destination.

Life is a lot similar.

I am a planner by nature and God knows it. He knows I like a good list, a good plan, and I want to know how things are going to turn out. But I feel like my life has been one recalculation after another.

For example, when I started up my business five years ago, I had my detailed spreadsheet of how many clients I would need, how much I would need to charge, how much would go taxes, and what I needed to make ends meet each month.

And then the economy went crazy….. Recalculating…….

I tried for about a year and a half to keep up with the spreadsheet until I just gave up and said “OK God. What you provide, you provide. I’m going to have a business plan but I’m not going to try to do your job for you.”

I wish I could tell you that stuck, but it didn’t. I have a hard head. Because every other day or so I have to come back and be like, “God, you are my provider. I trust you. Help my unbelief.”

Like this summer I wanted to bring in some extra income to pay off all this medical debt and all of the medical expenses I’m incurring right now. I got excited about setting up a cursive camp.

I spent every extra minute over two weeks setting up this camp and then the weekend after I could hardly function because what my body is dealing with right now, it cannot take any extra stress and I added more to my plate than I can handle. 

A couple of weeks later, after no one had signed up, I was reading a book by Susie Larson and she mentioned, “What area is God asking you to trust him in and where did you try to solve the problem on your own?” Then, no joke, she said, “did you take on a 3rd job even though he told you not to or didn’t tell you to?” Ouch, my toes hurt from that one.

Though I didn’t take on a 3^rd job, I took on a lot of extra work that my body cannot keep up with right now because I was afraid. And I hadn’t once asked God if I should do it. In that moment I felt the Lord lead me to “shut them down”. “Close registration – do the camps another time. Now is not the time. Trust me.”

Recalculating…. (although I’ll admit it took me a few days to actually do that one…)

Honestly the amount of times our lives recalculate we probably aren’t even aware of, but I was reminded the other day as I drove to drop off something at a friend’s. I said, “hey I’m coming over now” and she needed me to wait a little bit. When I did head over at the main intersection to get to her, there is a bad wreck that had happened. Had I gone through there 30 minutes earlier when I planned to, it’s possible that could have been me.

Not all recalculations are bad.

Some of them can be annoying to us as humans though.

The thing about when the GPS recalculates your destination is you still get to your destination eventually. It may not have been the route you intended to take to begin with, but you get there eventually.

As I came to God in tears the other night over just everything that’s going on in my life, I landed at my life verses in 2nd Corinthians 4. I was reminded that no matter what the journey on this earth looks like, and how many times it’s recalculated, or takes forks in the road that we didn’t plan on, when we know Jesus the destination never changes.

That is where hope lies.

So, today my friend, don’t lose heart, don’t let go….the treasure of heaven and all its perfection, no pain, no tears, no sorrow, no heartache, new bodies (hallelujah!)…..it’s still the destination and hope if you know Jesus.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12, 16-18 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹ For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you…¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

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