Where am I?

Sometimes it is hard to know where you are.  As many times as I travel to Chennai, I almost always travel on the main roads.  With repeated visits, awareness, and a general sense of direction, one can gain hold onto a sense of location.  I assumed Tuesday was going to be like any other day.
 
The driver and I were listening to classical Indian music.  Nothing was out of the ordinary until we hit the wall.  It wasn’t the normal traffic slow-down, or even a rush hour jam, it was a wall of cars, rickshaws, busses, trucks, and of course bicycles.  We sat parked with a living heartbeat.  It was as if we were trying to tell each other we were still alive, wanted to move, wasn’t this an opening, I’m taking the opening, and oops, “I’m sorry” let me inch back to where I was.  Tuesday marked the time for local elections, but the protest which emerged caught everyone by surprise.
 
The driver turned and asked if I objected to him trying some back roads.  With the first two turns I was quietly confident I knew our direction and location.  By the fifth, sixth, and tenth, I had no idea where I was, what was going on, and how any of this related to a destination.
 
I find my relationship with God like arriving at a wall.  I think I know where I am and where I need to go.  As I give God permission, my life changes in ways which quickly go in directions unknown, unplanned, and unexpected.  It isn’t that it is bad, it is just I often don’t understand.  The Spirit continues to whisper, “You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.”  (John 15.3)  It is as if the conversation continues, “Step into unknown, walk by faith, and accept the dawns.  Amazing things will happen.”
 
Tuesday I arrived in a hotel I didn’t expect to be in.  The service was great, everything folded into a divine plan.  Life is like that when I let God take charge.