Obstacles That Aren’t There: How To Find Your Way Forward In Life
Sometimes The Way Forward Looks Impossible
One day I was driving in my little 4 X 4 Geo tracker. I was just trying to listen to God and allow His Holy Spirit to lead and direct me. I was somewhere in Tennessee at the time.
Every time I would come to an intersection or a turn I would simply ask the Holy Spirit which way to go. That day, the Holy Spirit led me to less and less developed roads until I found myself on a very old dirt road that was barely two faint tracks in the dirt. I was crawling along by that time and eventually I came to the end of the trail. Ahead of me loomed a very thick wall of tangled brush.
What do I do now?
“Now, what do I do,” I thought to myself. God said, “Go forward.” The brush ahead looked very thick! I thought to myself, “If I go forward, I will get stuck and not be able to back out.” Additionally, I thought, “What if there is some kind of drop off or hole up ahead?” These and other objections to God’s plan swirled around in my brain. However, I encouraged myself by remembering the half-built bridge I crossed some time back. Therefore, I decided to trust God and let whatever was going to happen simply happen.
Sometimes you move forward by faith
Putting my little 4 x 4 in its lowest gear, I began to crawl through the thick brush. I didn’t know how far I would get as the 4 x 4 seemed to have a hard time driving over the thicket. However, all of a sudden, everything thinned out and I was on the road again! In fact, the road that I found was better than the one I had just left on the other side! The thicket, which had looked so dense and impassable, was only about 12 feet thick!
Looking at that obstacle with my natural eyes I had no way of knowing what I was getting myself into. It really looked like driving through that dense brush was a “bad” idea. Yet, God knew that what I saw as an impassable obstacle wasn’t really much of an obstacle at all. All I needed to do was trust Him and go forward.
If God calls you to do it, there is a way forward
So many times in our lives we look at our circumstances and think, “Wow, this really does not look like I can do what God says.” We list all the different reasons that following God’s voice will end in probable disaster. However, the reality is that the obstacles we see to obeying God’s will aren’t really there at all and if we decide to trust Him and “go forward” we will find that there is a way through even what seems impossible.