When God takes you on a detour...

...How do you respond?

God recently took me on a detour and I learned a lot about myself while on this detour that I did not like. To be completely honest with you, my first response to this detour was not pursuing Him. I am thankful that God is gracious. Now, when He takes me on any future detours, I can respond immediately by pursuing Him since I learned from this situation that I didn't get back to the main road until I began pursuing Him wholeheartedly.

For the past few months, I've been pursuing Him by praying about where God wants me to be in regards to church. I've been faithfully attending and serving at one church (TheMovement) for about three years now. I began pursuing Him when I noticed my heart hardening towards this church. I asked God if I should find a new church, and He instructed me to stay, take a break from serving, and rest. I obeyed Him and let go of the things that caused my heart to be hardened for a little while. Shortly after this, I began to see God growing my heart for National Missions and I would become discouraged when I thought about receiving the support I will need from the Movement based on the fact that their Mission Field is here, San Marcos. I began pursuing Him again, even harder this time because my desire to follow His will grew larger and I wanted to be where He wanted me to be, not where I wanted to be. On Sunday, I asked God to give me an answer about where He wants me to be, whether it is staying at theMovement or begin church hunting. It was then that God sent me on a detour.

I expected God to tell me to stay or go very clearly on Sunday January 9th. I attended theMovement in the morning and North Coast Calvary Chapel Carlsbad in the evening. I tried to surrender my will and be open to God's will, but realized later in the day as I spoke with a friend that I had not completely surrendered my will. I had taken everything and justified any signs/confirmations to lead me to go. I found myself at peace with going, but still asking God if it was my will or His. It was then that my good friend said that every time I talk about going to a new church, she believes God is telling her to tell me to stay at theMovement. She did not want to tell me this, because she knew I got frustrated and defensive whenever we talked about that. She had to tell me though, because she knew this time it was not from her, but God. It was then that I realized I did get defensive and put a wall up anytime we discussed possible reasons God would have me stay. Hearing that from her was hard, but caused me to pursue Him harder and with all that I had. I had to take this to the Lord since she was so persistent about it and it came from Him. I bet He used her to speak that to me because He knew I didn't want to hear it and wouldn't hear it from Him.

That afternoon, I went home and fought with God. He was taking me on a detour that I did not want to follow. Don't you wish he'd sometimes tell us detour ahead? If only I knew it was coming, there is a slight chance that I may not have been as frustrated as I was taking this detour. I felt like a kid throwing a tantrum, kicking and screaming. I had a vision of myself punching a pillow and being mad at God. I wondered, Why do kids throw tantrums? Simply because they do not get what they want. God was humbling me slowly as the day went on showing me that maybe His will is not what I want. This scripture came to mind:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. " Isaiah 55:8-9

(Study Notes)
-The people of Israel were foolish to act as if they knew what God was thinking & planning. His knowledge and wisdom are far greater than man's. We are foolish to try and fit God into our mold- to make his plans and purposes conform to ours. Instead, we must strive to fit into his plans.

I had heard this scripture and knew it, but this past weekend is when it had new meaning for me as I wholeheartedly pursued Him. I thought to myself Knowing God's ways are not my ways means that I have to surrender my ways and follow His, even if it is not what I want or think is best for me. Yikes! This is where I learned something I didn't like about my character. I was unwilling to fully surrender my will in order to follow His will. I felt so hypocritical as I recently told God I'm all yours. I just want to be used by you. I have the ability in this season of my life to simply pick up and follow your lead. Yet, when He asked me to follow His ways and not mine, I was fighting Him.

I was able to recognize my defensiveness and as the Lord humbled me I finally pursued Him again, but this time it was just me and Him. I turned off my phone, shut my door, and asked God to speak to me about what His will really is in this situation. (I noticed that my decision was being swayed based on the circumstances throughout the day, so I needed to hear directly from Him) I had my computer on Pandora and the first song that played was called "Whatever You're Doing" by Sanctus Real. The lyrics are as follows:

It’s time for healing time to move on

It’s time to fix what’s been broken too long

It’s time to find my way to where I belong

There’s a wave that’s crashing over me

All I can do is surrender

Whatever you’re doing inside of me

It feels like chaos but somehow there’s peace

It’s hard to surrender to what I can’t see

But I’m giving in to something heavenly

Time for a milestone

Time to begin again

Revaluate who I really am

Am I doing everything to follow your will

Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills

So show me what it is you want from me

I give everything I surrender…

Time to face up

Clean this old house

Time to breathe in and let everything out

That I’ve wanted to say for so many years

Time to release all my held back tears

Whatever you’re doing inside of me

It feels like chaos but now I can see

This something bigger than me

Larger than life something heavenly

Something heavenly

It was dead on to how I felt inside, and I believe God used this worship song to speak to me because I was pursuing Him. He revealed to me that my heart was still hardened towards the Movement, and I cannot move forward without dealing with that. He showed me that my heart needed healing. I went to NCCCC in the evening, and the first song they played during worship was called Healer and the first line was I believe that You're my Healer. So, I decided to meet with the Pastor's wife and discuss the things that were on my heart so that I could receive the healing my heart needed, and receive her blessing for me to move forward and begin church hunting since they are unable to provide the resources for me to move forward in National Missions.

While on this detour, God also gave me more wisdom about receiving support from churches in regards to National Missions and this knowledge helped me understand more a different perspective about what I am able to expect in regards to that. He humbled me and showed me that it is not the pastor or leadership of the church that I have a problem with, it is between my relationship with God that needed to sort things out and also get to the root of the issue. God showed me that my discouragement comes from a growing heart and passion for National Missions and the Movement's lack of resources to help me move ahead in that area. Their focus and big ministry is their community and youth, which is so awesome! I saw the Lord slowly pull me out of things and disconnect me from the Movement, and I believe He was doing this to help with this transition time. I recognized that one thing burdening me from moving forward is also a fear (not from God) of what others will think or that they won't understand where I'm coming from in this decision. For some reason, I felt like leaving a church and finding a new one means something negative had to have happened. That is definitely NOT the case here...God is just leading me into a new season of my life and it is ok to find a place that is able to support a big passion that I have and offer opportunities to go on more Missions Trips. That being said, this detour came to an end on Thursday when I met with the Pastor's wife and spoke to her about all that was on my heart, heard truth, and received a blessing from her to move forward and get back on the main road.

One thing I realized through all of this though, is that God is probably full of detours. Pursuing Him requires faithful obedience and willingness to follow His ways, not our ways. How will you respond when God takes you on a detour? Learn what not to do in the experience I have described above. It is not worth fighting God. Begin by pursuing Him the moment you see that detour sign. I'm thankful God will give me more opportunities to handle a detour differently next time. I look back and wonder why I fought with God because based on that scripture and truths from the Bible, I know that God's ways are better than my ways. Knowing something and putting it into action or believing it are two completely different things. My prayer is that you and I both and continue to pursue Him every day, especially when He takes us on a detour.

*P.s. Here is something I wrote in my journal on Saturday night before all of that chaoticness came inside of me on Sunday. I need confirmatioons from God tomorrow that he's leading me somewhere new and conflicts if not so it's clear. I asked God for conflict to make it clear to me, and somehow I forgot about this as I was experiencing tremendous conflict on Sunday. He does hear us and He is faithful to answer. Lol.