Silently, the sun illuminates the treetops across the still water.
Crickets hum in synchronous unison.
The last hummingbirds of the season stop to sip nectar before departing for their annual excursion.
And fog rises from the surface of the lake.
Autumn has arrived.
Over the last weeks I have seen monarchs, almost daily.
Fluttering and floating.
Effortlessly in flight against a palette of infinite blue. Like the hummingbirds, they too have a destination. They are migrating at this time of year.
Their vibrant wings carry the colors of the season.
Like marigolds at a garden’s edge. Pumpkins in the field. Or leaves softly turning on the branches of the maple tree.
Beyond their beauty lies a delicate strength and unsurpassed endurance.
Their wings, covered with powdery scales, could easily be torn. Yet the fourth generation of these incredible creatures is able to fly more than 50 miles per day on a 2-3,000 mile quest. They are headed to Mexico, where they hibernate for the winter.
Monarch butterflies are an amazing natural phenomenon ~ according to science.
In other words, they are yet another brilliant example of God’s Almighty handiwork!
Unlike the monarch, we weren’t given instinct.
We were given free will.
Yet similarly, we are on a journey home.
Each day, we are presented with thousands upon thousands of choices. Which way to turn. Where to stop and rest.
Decisions that we make ~ some instantaneously. Others are more well thought out. But the most important aspect remains constant and ever-present before us.
Do we try?
Or do we trust?
Psalm 62:8
Trust in Him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts to Him,
for God is our refuge.
We don’t have to look too far to see the groaning of our world.
Our society is awash with sin. The enemy knows he is in his last hour and soon the war of principalities will come to an end ~ and our God wins.
But until then, the enemy seeks to tempt and devour his victims with greed, pride, envy…and the list goes on.
How do we find ourselves off the path again?
We are Christ followers. We are His.
But…we are also human.
Our lives on this earth will be challenged by the powers of darkness.
…
Sometimes overcome by fear.
We can become entangled in the sin of comparison. Looking at others lives, wishing that ours was so good. We find excuses and listen to lies, telling us that we will never measure up. In the grip of anxiety we find ourselves feeling frightened and alone.
Vulnerable.
Ensnared in the distress of deceit.
We can be enslaved to anger.
Old wounds still throb with pain if we let them.
Holding on to the unfairness of our past like a twisted security blanket. Somewhere deep down, we know it’s not right, but it feels familiar. We know it well. And it is ours.
Both fear and anger are commonly laced with expectation.
Whether we struggle with fear, or wrestle with anger in our lives, expectation is inextricably linked.
It plays a great role in our diminished perception of this world.
We fear what the future will bring. Or not bring. Will it reveal what we’ve planned? What we expect to have or to experience?
Likewise, anger becomes our torrid companion when we feel we have been mistreated.
We hold hostage the resentment from a wrongdoing in the past. What we expected someone to do or say. What we anticipated the outcome should have been. But we were let down…yet again.
Fear and anger are counterparts to our misery. And both are perpetuated by trying.
Trying to escape the outcome of reality.
Trying to prevent the possibility of failure.
Trying to achieve revenge.
Trying to right a wrong with resentment.
We try.
Desperately…
to win the loss.
to flee the failure.
to chain another with our unforgiveness.
The problem with this approach is that it never works.
In trying we are never free.
Yet the beauty of it all, is that both fear and anger are canceled out by trust.
Trust in the almighty God.
The Sovereign One.
Faith in Him alone.
Isaiah 40:31
Those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
In the Cross, we are offered Peace.
Through surrendering our fear and standing in forgiveness ~ with those who have hurt us.
Sometimes the forgiveness we seek is just as much for ourselves. Relief from the holding on. The holding out. The clutching onto guilt and condemnation for our own sinful ways.
In Christ’s death and resurrection we were given a lifeline. When we find ourselves in a pit of fear and anger that sometimes swallows us up, God reaches out His gentle and loving hand.
He extends the gift of Grace.
This gift can be wrapped in a multitude of ways.
Often, in my life, it is found in the love of ‘detour angels’.
Sometimes wrapped in the smile of a stranger.
Many times it’s the encouragement we receive from friends or family. Those people who God places purposefully in our lives at a given time to say, do, or show us the right way.
We’re off course.
Detour angels provide the direction we are seeking. They help us to get back on track, so that we can be headed toward our common destination.
Back to peace.
Back to our Jesus.
…
I can remember a trip to Chicago with my Sweet Louise.
Navigating the tangled web of expressways around the city, we were relying on the GPS and maps on my phone to guide us.
The goal was to remain on the blue line.
If we weren’t there, then we were lost.
So as I drove, Emma piloted us toward our desired location. The frequent question that passed my lips was, “Where is the blue dot?”
Are we on the blue line?
Are we headed the right way?
…
So where is your ‘blue dot’ today?
Mine has been off the road, probably in a field somewhere and stuck in the mud for quite a while. An extended overnight stay in oblivion, no doubt.
I have been feeling lost.
Wandering and tired.
And being off my course, I have been choosing to move in fear. To ratchet myself down with anger. My old familiar tools I have reached for in times of stress.
All the while, I have been preventing any forward momentum in my walk with Christ.
But God is faithful!
We are never too far from Him to be found.
He sent those beautiful detour angels and I’ve found my way back onto the blue line : )
Those detours can be frightening.
They can be treacherous. And they can seem to last forever.
But in them there are life lessons.
Lessons of navigation. New routes to streamline our journey so that next time we won’t get so far off the path.
These detours are always teachings of trust.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
Our Father God is Sovereign.
He moves when we can’t see it. Always calling our heart into His great hands.
Calling us to rest.
To peace.
When we find this place, we want more of it.
This is the place where trying ends, and trusting begins.
Instead of trying to lead our lives, we follow Christ.
We exist in the present with Him.
No longer fearing our future, nor looking back with an angry heart.
In Christ, we can experience the contentment of truly being loved, even if we have been hurt by others in the past.
We can know peace in Him, even when our souls have only known chaos and strife.
We can know the true joy that comes not from this world, but from the Glory of His Grace.
Psalm 103:2-5
Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all His benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
As we let go of our old responses to life, and open ourselves up to His goodness, things change.
We change.
Fear is abandoned.
Anger is no longer our ‘go-to’ response.
And our expectations shift.
We no longer see the limited, human possibilities, but come to anticipate wondrous things in our lives.
We look forward to healing, to peace, and to experiences beyond our realm of thinking.
For God created us.
He knows what makes our hearts sing.
…
My eldest brother and I had an immense falling out.
A severing of our relationship.
Absent from one another’s lives, the pain of that separation was profound.
He was my guardian, my protector, growing up. A kindred spirit through my college years. And into adulthood, we had always kept in touch. I loved getting his letters.
But anger and pain had seeped in and now spanned the miles and miles between us ~
for 12 long years.
This loss, this emptiness without him in my life, became the norm.
I had given up hope of ever seeing him again.
As time went on, praying for his happiness was the only thing I could do. I no longer tried to reach out to him. I stopped worrying and surrendered.
I gave the relationship to God.
I handed it over at the foot of the Cross.
It was Thanksgiving about four years ago, and we were again gathering at my sister’s house.
My brother had not come for the celebration the years that I was there.
But…
this year he did.
And this year we talked.
And this year we cried.
And together, we laughed.
We have been in touch ever since.
Reconciling the relationship with my brother was nothing I could have accomplished no matter how hard I tried.
Trust had to enter in.
God’s ways are higher than ours.
He healed a wound that no longer had words.
He mended what I expected to be forever broken.
And so today, my heart sings with gratitude, as I tell the story over and over again. Giving Him the Glory every time.
I couldn’t have dreamed up a sweeter ending.
But God could.
And He did.
So…now I watch in amazement as He continues to shower me with blessings. I wait in joyful anticipation of His abundant provision for my life.
Over and over again.
My Sweet Louise 
Please share your thoughts.