Detours

You are driving down the road, singing along to a favorite song on the radio.  The sun is shining and life is good.  Then, suddenly, you start to see orange signs and arrows.  You keep driving in hopes that the signs do not refer to the road you intend to follow.  Even though the sign says, “Road ends in 1 mile” followed by another sign that says, “Road ends in ½ mile”, you keep driving forward in complete denial.  Eventually you find yourself at a barricade with a huge sign that says, “Road Closed.”  Still fighting denial, you look down the road to see if may be you can drive around the sign and still get to where you want to go.  Finally, you accept that your road has come to a dead end. 

So, what do you do?  Well, you do the only thing you can do.  You put it in park.  Turn the engine off and wait.  Hopefully, you have a granola bar in the glove box because it is going to be a while.  I mean what else can you do but wait for them to open the road you need to take to get where you are going, right?  Why are you looking at me like I have lost my mind?

No way!  If we come to a dead end on a road, we don’t stop.  We look for the detour signs and if there are no detour signs then we create one of our own.  The point is we would never let a closed road stop us from moving forward. 

The resurrection of Jesus delivers us that very message on an eternal scale.  As we read the story of God through the Bible we see that time and time again the road to God’s “plan A” was regularly closed down because of the choices of his people.  For example, I am sure Abraham and Sarah wished they would have not taken matters into their own hands and involved another woman in their marriage bed. I am sure Lot wished his wife would not have looked over her shoulder so that she would be more than salt at their dinner table. Samuel told the people that God said they would regret having a king, but they demanded one.  I am pretty sure David would have changed the channel instead of watching another man’s wife bathe and maybe she would have rethought bathing on the rooftop in front of the king’s picture window.  Solomon was considered the wisest man to ever live and yet he built God’s temple on the backs of slaves forgetting that God delivered his people from slavery.  On and on the story of God goes with his people making choices that create road blocks to his plan.  It reminds us of the power of our choices.  God’s own people can stop God’s plan from being unfolded.  Heck, God’s people nailed his only Son to a tree.  God so respects the will he has given us that he will let us completely circumvent the direct route to his purposes and plans.  But as powerful as our choices can be they do not create dead ends. 

In the end, God’s way always prevail.  His Son is risen! Whether God’s people choose to follow him is up to them, but God has already told us where he is going with all of this:

“Then I saw a new heaven and new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 

Translation:  Like it or not, God is going to make all things new!  Not even heaven and earth will stay the same. And there are no dead ends we can will into existence that God can’t reroute with a detour to get His true people there!