We had been walking for a long time. The terrain was rough and my feet hurt. I was totally surprised by the journey we were led to take. I had not expected to be taken on this route but the GPS was guiding us and we were headed in the right direction. There was no way around how we had to go. This was the way and we just had to accept it. Everything around me was brown. Everything around me was dry. Everything around me was hard and rocky. It was hot. And it was also strangely beautiful at the same time.
No, I was not in a desert. I have never been in one but I felt and thought to myself, I might as well have been. There just did not seem to be much life around me, and the ground really was hard. I wanted to give up. I wanted to turn around. But I knew if I had, I would have missed experiencing the joy of what was at the end of this long walk.
Perhaps you are walking and walking and walking and feeling like you are going nowhere. You had a plan or idea of where you were going and you end up somewhere else or where you planned to go isn’t what you thought it would be.
Life is like that sometimes, isn’t it? Perhaps you are walking and walking and walking and feeling like you are going nowhere. You had a plan or idea of where you were going and you end up somewhere else or where you planned to go isn’t what you thought it would be. You look around and everything is not the beautiful picture you hoped it would be and yet, there is still something beautiful in the unexpected that you are looking at, only if you truly stop to look.
So that is exactly what I did. I stopped many times and took photos and they captured the magnificence of God. I was walking in nature and noticing things God revealed to me of His majesty and creativity. He was teaching me that dry seasons still produce life. It especially became very clear to me when I looked down and right in front of me in the crack of the dirt and in the rocks was a flower! A single beautiful red flower! At the moment of my greatest fatigue God used a visual to speak. That picture was truly worth a thousand words.
There are moments and seasons in our lives where we are exactly where God wants us to be. He has us on a journey that is rough. It is a dry season. It is a dirty season. It is a long and exhausting season. At the moment we want to give up, God shows us a clear picture that He is with us and He is making something beautiful, something good in the places that we least expect. In Psalm 63:1 David talks about his soul thirsting for God in a dry and weary land. Our souls know what David expresses and we can know that when we seek God, He comes to meet us right where we are. Jeremiah 17:8 reminds us that when we are planted in the Lord, even in the drought there is fruit.
Remember the GPS was leading us through this rough terrain. It knew exactly where we needed to go. If we didn’t follow it, we would have gotten lost- all because we did not want to be walking where we were directed to go. Our destinations were landmarks in Greece and the Acropolis. We did arrive and it was beyond our expectations. God is our spiritual GPS and will lead us through every terrain, knowing exactly where we need to go. If we continue to follow the one who knows best and knows all, no matter what, we will find beauty along the way and find our way to amazing places. Life still grows in rocky places all because God lives in every place. Let’s keep going and get to places we would never reach without God!
You write so beautifully, friend!