Making A U-Turn To Get Back On Track

MAKING A U-TURN TO GET BACK ON TRACK 

How many times have we had to turn around in order to move in the right direction to our destination?  I’ve been known to make U-turns in all sorts of unlikely places. Sometimes passengers in the car with me appreciate those moments and at other times they just shake their head!!  Personally, I’m grateful for all the years of driving in Taiwan that gave me skills I can still use!!

Well, I’d like to talk today about another kind of U-turn that we need to make every time we find ourselves heading in the wrong direction.

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it.

Isaiah 30:15

It’s so easy to wander off on our own paths of self-interest or convenience without properly consulting what God has to say about where we need to be going and what route we ought to take.

It’s not always that we are on a wrong road, but the God who knows past, present, and future, also knows where the “construction zones” and “traffic jams” up ahead are and He will give us alternate routes to what we think might be the best routes because we don’t know those hazard zone.

The question for all of us is, when we’re tired and frustrated because things are bogged down and there seems to be no way forward on the route we are taking, will have the good sense to repent – to return to God – and in Him and His guidance find saving and rest. 

There is a challenging sentence in what we read isn’t there.  For the people of God to whom these words were first addressed, they chose to complain and worry instead of trusting God and following His guidance.  That resulted of 40 years of wandering instead of what could have been a journey of just a few weeks or months. 

In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it.

That’s what God said to them and I wonder how often He’s had to say that to me or to you.   Let’s change that today, shall we?

Loving God, we make a choice in this moment to return our attention to You.  We affirm that it is only in quiet and confident trust in Your good heart towards us that we find saving and rest. 

Where our attitudes, words, or behaviours reflect something other than Your heart, we lay them down.  We make a U-turn in our heart and mind right here and now and put our will and our life into Your care. 

Help us to trust.  It shouldn’t be an issue for us but it often is.  Help us to quickly obey everything You tell us because that’s when we’ll experience Your saving help.  Amen

We don’t have to be in a vehicle to make a necessary U-turn today.  Let’s return to God in all the ways we need to so we have the best day possible.