U-Turn

            The Lord has asked founder Lisa Burkhardt Worley to be still and sit at his feet for a while (Psalm 46:10).  So because of this, Pearls of Promise is re-running some of its most popular devotions from the Pearls archives.  Today’s devotion was last published on December 29, 2012. 

            Years ago, a friend of mine and I decided to take a trip to Colorado with our children, two two-year olds and an eight and a nine-year old. It was a long trip with small children so we wanted to make the drive in as short a time as possible.

On the way home, I was chatting with my friend when I looked up and saw a highway sign that read, “Las Vegas-280 miles.” “Las Vegas? I shouldn’t be headed towards Nevada. I was supposed to be going towards Texas.”

It was then that I realized I was traveling the wrong direction and somewhere along the way, had missed a turn. I had to make a U-turn! As it turned out, I had ventured twenty-miles in the wrong direction.  Overall, a forty-mile and forty-five minute mistake! As much as I did not want to turn around, I realized I had to in order to get to my destination.

Isn’t life like that sometimes? You think you are headed the right way; in fact, the signs you see are actually pointing you one-way, but then you hit a dead-end and have to turn around, as difficult as that is.

The apostle Paul knows this concept. He thought he was doing the right thing as he marched down the road to Damascus, breathing murderous threats against Christians. But then a brilliant road sign named Jesus blinded him and let him know he needed to recalculate the route for his life.

Can you imagine the sorrow Paul felt when he realized he was wrong all those years when he thought he was right? It must have been difficult to make a U-Turn, but he knew his mission was headed in the wrong direction. After his life was redirected, instead of persecuting Christians, Paul preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus (Acts 9:27) and risked his life because of his boldness.

What about you? Have you hit a couple of roadblocks lately and now you realize you have to make a U-Turn? In my case, I recently went down a path that proved to be a dead-end before. Why didn’t I learn from my previous journey? Always the optimist, I thought it would be different this time, but I ended up in the exact same place. Have you had situations like that?

We must learn from our past and we must seek God as we navigate through the future. Ultimately, He has placed in us a sophisticated navigation system, but there’s one catch.  It only works when we activate it each morning through time spent with Him. God wants to lead you down a path that requires no U-Turns. The only time we head the wrong direction is when we leave Him behind.