Rerouting...

Five little words.
None over four letters.
19 letters in all.
Such little words with a BIG impact.

Several days ago, my husband and I (along with our oldest and her best friend, though they had a different seating area) had the wonderful joy of attending a Casting Crowns concert (also featuring Unspoken and Danny Gokey).  CC has been one of our favorite groups for many years and this was I *think* our 4th to attend as a couple.  The night, start to finish, was phenomenal.  Not only was the music, worship and performances TOP NOTCH, but each artist took the opportunity to speak from their hearts, to bring the Word or encourage, challenge, and even convict.

It was during one of those moments of sharing that I heard those five little words.

STEP BACK INTO HIS PLAN

Those words have taken deep root in my heart and God has been completely at work with His whisperings of what those words mean to me.

It's like when you're driving around and relying on GPS to get you where you need to go.  Perhaps you miss a turn completely.  Perhaps you couldn't change lanes quickly enough.  Maybe you come upon construction and detours.  Maybe it's the annoying situation of driving in a city and coming upon a one way going the opposite direction of what you need or it's one of those situations where the direction changes according to traffic needs.  Or maybe you see somewhere else you want to go first or your kids (or husband!) needs a pit stop.  It always results in that little voice and words on the screen showing...REROUTING. A new calculation is made and with some little tweaks and changes, you're put back on the correct path to your destination.

Do you need a reroute today?

In what areas do you need to step back into His plan?

Are you walking a path you know is leading you AWAY from instead of TO Him?  Maybe you're walking in sin and you know it. No denying it.

Maybe you've just made some little wrong decisions here and a little there.  You didn't mean to get off course, but those little gray areas caused you to deviate more and more until you no longer know where you are.

What about some of those other areas of being out of His plan?

Did you give up on a dream or calling He gave you because it was too hard, others doubted you, or you doubted yourself? Did you give up on those dreams because they may have needed a temporary wait that you turned into never fulfilling. As a mom still in the middle of raising children, I know I have dreams that may be on temporary hold in this season, but in my heart, I may have completely stifled them in the waiting season. Even in the wait, there are ways to still be moving forward and keeping those dreams alive. They don't have to die when God gives us a temporary wait.

Are you walking in bitterness, have an unforgiving spirit? Those aren't in His plan.  Those are like weeds out of control.  They can wrap around anything and everything good in your life and suffocate them if you don't cut them down and fully remove them.  Stepping into His plan means letting it go. Then you can truly be walking in His plan for your life.  Bitterness and unforgiveness are chains.  So are jealousy, anger, comparison, and lack of gratitude.  They all just keep you locked in place and not in a place of growth and productivity.

Maybe, oh this is a tough one, maybe you've got on the track of go, go, go.  We tend to glorify busy in this day and age. Are you going so fast and have so many things on your plate that you just can't find the time to SIT at His feet and just soak Him in.  We can even be out of His plan in over-serving and over-doing. Ouch. We can be completely investing in good things, but even good things can be too much if we are losing sight of the one we serve.  Are we serving for accolades? Are we serving out of duty or thinking we can cover an empty place in our heart? Are we serving as a result of saying yes when we knew in our heart we should have said no? Has serving become our idol?  Is our level of busyness our gauge of our spirituality?  That's a dangerous place to find ourselves in.  Sometimes stepping back into His plan means letting some things go. Sometimes we can find ourselves so busy (either doing good things or doing things that have the wrong motivations) and we can't even hear Him whispering to our hearts because we have no margin to listen. Or we find we've been neglecting the nearest and dearest in our lives because we didn't have time to give them our full attention.  Ouch. Double ouch.

Maybe God has been asking you to do something and you have been walking down a different path, one of avoidance or denial. If He is asking something of you, you can run as far as you want, but it will never be far enough.  His calling will remain. That avoidance and disobedience will lead to such discontentment in your life.  Until we surrender, FULLY, we never know just how amazing it is to be in His plan.

I don't know about you, but my heart needs some rerouting. I need to be taking some steps BACK into His plan.

You know what, it's ok to not know what that plan is.  It's ok to not know where a particular request is taking you. Perhaps your path is very painful right now or uncertain.  Maybe He's asking you to walk with Him in faith down a path that you can't see an illuminated destination.  Maybe you don't know the coordinates to enter in for GPS to lead the way.

We trust anyway.

We keep walking.

We let His Spirit convict and redirect when we stumble.  His mercy and grace welcomes us back even when we've taken the most defiant steps of running the opposite direction of Him.  We've found ourselves traveling in unfamiliar areas and GPS lost its signal.  We never have to worry about that with God in our lives.  If we ask, He answers.  If we are lost, He finds us.  If we are broken, He fixes us.  He's our chainbreaker and gap filler.  Only a whisper away. In His great love, He gives us the opportunity to step back in.  Forgiving and merciful.

Today, ask yourself "Am I in His plan?"  If you know that answer is no or you've taken a few wrong steps or lost sight of what the path He has for you is, just reach out to Him.  Simply surrender.

One foot in front of the other.
Step back into His plan.
It may be a giant step or it may be a series of small steps.  Just step.

He'll be waiting!