Forks in the Road

I have been very reflective the last couple of weeks. This month marks my 10 year anniversary of living in Southern California. It is so amazing to me that I have been here that long. I remember at one time saying I would never live in Southern California. Don't ever say you will never do something. We don't always know what God's plan is and sometimes the place He needs to take us to is the very place we don't want to go to. Ten years ago I came to a fork in the road. As I approached it, everything in me wanted to turn left. Left was where I thought my future was but I had to turn right. I was sure I was making a huge mistake. As I forced my car to veer to the right, lots of tears began to flow. You see to the left was someone I cared about; to the left was were I thought I would find love; to the left I thought I had found some security. But I was running from God and I had been running for some time and even though I had taken the "right" fork, I was still running.

Why was I running? I had turned my back on God and everything that I had once held as precious. I had made a choice to live for me and when you are living for yourself there is no room for God. There were people who knew something was wrong and just either didn't know what to say to me or just didn't want to get involved. Not that I blame them. I wouldn't have listened to them anyway. I remember one friend, Jennifer, asking me point blank. "What are you doing?" My answer may be a surprise but I was in a really bad place so I said to her, "Whatever I want!" I was done living by everyone elses rules. I was ready to make all my own rules and I was going to finally be happy. I tried really hard to convience myself that I was happy and that all these choices I had made where making me happy too. But you know what, now, ten years later, looking back, I was not happy. It was probably one of the saddest times in my whole life. I have never cried more in my life than I did during that period of running. I was even physically sick at times too. The ironic part is that all those choices I had made actually lead me to that fork in the road ten years ago.

Even though I thought everything I wanted was to the left, God knew better and even though I was running from the Lord, He wasn't running from me. He was actually running ahead of me, preparing the way and that right turn at the fork was all a part of His plan. I could never have imagined what God had prepared for me, what He had planned for me, but Jeremiah 29:11 says, ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.' And what a future and a hope it has turned out to be. I hear people quote that verse all the time, but really you can't read verse 11 without reading verse 10 because verse 10 gives you the context and it even becomes more meaningful. Verse 10 says, “For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place." He was telling them that even though they were in captivity and that being in exile in Babylon was a punishment for their sins; He was not finished with them. He would not be putting them on a shelf but when the time was right, He would bring them back because He had a future and a hope for them.
God had a future and a hope for me and yes, there are consequences for my sinful choices, but that didn't change the future and hope He had planned for me. It took me a long time to accept His future and hope for me. I kept thinking He would never want to use me again after all I had done, but that's not how God works. In His loving grace, He opens up His arms of love to us. We just need to accept it and move forward in the future and hope that He lays before us.

Have you come to any forks in the road? Do you want to turn left but the Lord is leading you right? Trust the road to the "right", it will lead to His future and hope for you.