Please Excuse the Delay

A friend posted this on Facebook the other day, and I just had to share it.  I know there are some of you out there who are waiting on God for the next thing in your life.  Aren't we all at some point?  Think about this:

"Sometimes you are delayed

where you are because God

knows there's a storm where

you're headed.

Be grateful."

Wow.  Think about that for a minute.  You know that feeling of being "stuck" -- and trying to trust God for what's coming next?  And not understanding why he doesn't hurry up and speed you along to the next great thing?  Speaking for myself, I can be pretty impatient about the whole process.

Have you ever had this happen to you?  :: You have someplace to be, and an order of events all played out in your mind.  But something ends up happening and you don't leave the house on time as you'd planned.  When you're finally on your way, you get held up, and as you inch forward in traffic, you realize there's a bad accident.  If you'd left five minutes earlier, who knows if YOU would've been involved?  I typically breathe a prayer of "thank you Lord for slowing me down today."

It's happened to me -- and I don't mind telling you... more than once.  Probably not a good indicator of how often God has to slow me down and get my attention, I admit.

How often do we race ahead assuming we know what is to be, rather than waiting on God?  How often do we orchestrate what comes next out of our impatience?  In our limited view, we can't fathom that God is thinking of us... always... and always has our best interests at heart.  Even when we feel like he's not looking... he is in control.

Knowing there might be a storm where we're headed next puts a different spin on the waiting, brings a new perspective to contentment with the here and now, and gives the word "delay" whole new meaning.