Hello, September. College Football is in full swing – with Pro Football on its way…the smell of fried apple pies is in the air as the annual Searcy Family excursion to the North Georgia apple festivals draws near…we’re a month away from the Fall Classic…and the leaves are getting ready to change with the coming of Fall. I LOVE Fall. With the changing of the leaves also comes long rides and drives through breathtaking color provided by the Fall foliage. Now, with rides of any distance, there is always the chance of a detour…and detours are what we’re talking about this month.
Let’s set it up: Above you is a sky so bright that it hurts your eyes. The temperature is about 70 degrees. The car, or motorcycle, is washed, waxed, and loaded with essentials for a ride. You drop the top and/or windows, and off you go. There is nothing but open road, fresh air, and…well, you get the picture. All of a sudden, you see brake lights up ahead…and they are not moving. As you get a little closer you see a flashing light and an orange sign that says “Detour Ahead”. Man, oh man. Just when I thought everything was going great, this happens. Sound familiar? By the way, I was referring to your life. Or how about this? You are driving…same blue sky, same fresh air, same shiny machine, and you come to a fork in the road. It’s decision time. What makes you take one way or the other? Past experience? Knowledge of one road or the other or where they end up? Knowing what you will experience or come across if you go one way? Not sure what will happen if you take the other way?
On the road, you never know what you are going to experience and you never know when you will have to take a detour or come to a fork. Sometimes God gives us forks, where we are given the opportunity to choose a direction. One way is the direction that will take us toward Him, another way takes us away from Him, and another takes us back home. Other times, He will drop a detour in our path where we lose a directional option leaving us to go either forward in the direction He has determined or back to where we were. 
Think about some of the detours and forks you have come upon in your life. Each one impacts us differently and causes us to go in one direction or another. Depending on the severity of an event, occurrence, situation, decision, it is often times very difficult to take the road that takes us close to God. If something has happened that really turned your life upside, or that hurt you significantly, or created a circumstance that is very painful or one that if you ever revisit again it will be too soon, choosing to go in a direction that we know will inevitably bring us face to face with whatever it is that caused the course change is, in many people’s eyes, on the side of being a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. God says different. In His word, God speaks through the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans and tells us that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” (Rom 8:37 NIV) Paul goes on to say that “neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39 NIV). Christ told us in the book of John, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 NIV).
Prayer: Lord, thank You for Your grace, Your love, and Your forgiveness. I am grateful for Your sovereignty, Your guidance, and for the fact that nothing ever happens to me that has not already passed through Your hands. So often, the road I find myself on is dictated by circumstances beyond my control. Other times, it is all my doing. Lord, as my life changes direction, I pray that You will take over the driving as well as navigational responsibilities. Please give me the strength to relinquish my grip on the wheel. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
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Until next time, keep it Real…Radical…Relentless…Relevant…Rock On…and Armor Up!
Jeff Searcy 