Remember the old you that didn’t live for Christ? The one that was open to doing things your way and living your life on your terms? Remember when sex before marriage, provocative dress, and partying was how you looked forward to spending your weekends? You said you believed in Christ but you weren’t living for Him. Remember when all that fun caught up to you and you felt like a penny with a hole in it? I’m sure many others have been in the same position where you said to yourself, “I can’t live like this anymore, it’s not working, I need MORE.”
More abundance, more joy, more peace, and more love.
Then, you ventured back into Christ because you knew somewhere deep inside of yourself that only through Him could you receive any of those things.
Many of us are renewing our relationships with Christ. We have decided that the world has absolutely nothing to offer us and that the only way to truly live the life of our dreams is to pick up our cross and follow Him. It’s exciting, until we realize that all of that “fun and excitement” we were seeking in the past has landed us completely off course. We are in New Mexico because we’ve been following our own plan when, all along, we were actually supposed to be in France on the route that God has for our life.
So, here you are, in the middle of New Mexico with your cross ready to follow Jesus, and then it hits you. “I’ve never been to France? How will I get there?” Lucky enough for you, God is right there with you to take you on a new journey to where He wants you to be.
The Holy Spirit that lives inside of each and every Christian who believes is our own personal GPS system that leads us on our own specified journey through life. I thought about the GPS system in my car and how sometimes, when I follow it, I start to think we no longer need to listen to it because I know a short cut or I feel the GPS is taking me too long to get there. Although I hear its directions I choose to ignore it. So, I wind up taking the short cut and sitting in traffic for three hours. I could have avoided this set back because I thought I knew it all, but the GPS knew more. The GPS took in to account the traffic that I couldn’t see and was leading me down the right path, but I gave up on it. My GPS knew exactly why to avoid certain routes and which routes were best for me.
So, here we are, in our mess- frustrated and late for our appointment- when something wonderful happens; the GPS says something reassuring, “system re-route.” Our GPS then helps us avoid the long traffic, even though we have gone the wrong way, and gets us back on track. What this means is that although we are going about it a different way, our GPS system will allow us to take an alternate route to our destination. God operates in the same capacity. We sometimes decide we want to “have some fun” so we make pit stops and get off of the path that God has laid out before us. We get distracted, and we decide getting into the world a little bit can’t hurt us. So we get to somewhere near where we should be, but we miss an opportunity that was going to benefit us because we wanted to take the short cut through life.
Although we may be one million miles from where God wants us, we can still decide to trust Him and follow His directions. Remember, the path that you are on now [after you messed up] is different than the path you abandoned. You must now get to your destination in a different way, so things may look and feel a lot different than our original route. Trust the Lord through your circumstances and know that He is re-routing you to your destiny. God has not given up on you and nothing you do can ever separate you from God’s love. In Romans 3:38 Paul states, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” Take that powerful message with you where ever you find yourself on your journey.
Remember, no matter where you are nothing can ever separate you from God and the plan He has for your life. No matter how much we mess up God is always willing to guide you if you are willing to follow Him.
