Classic Christmas: Devotions From Time Of GraceSample

Thank God for detours 

You’re late to the company party. Your hot dish is getting lukewarm on the backseat as you zip through yellow lights (well, orangish, to be precise). But then you see the sign—Detour. You try not to take God’s name in vain as you hear the lovely voice of your GPS navigator, “Recalculating . . .”

Life is like that, right? You have a simple plan to get from A to B. Graduate, get a good job, and then start a family. Invest for a few more years, retire, and enjoy the last decades of your life. Move, find a reasonable apartment, and get connected to a good church. But then you get detoured. Roadblocked. And you try not to take God’s name in vain as you recalculate.

Which is why you need to remember Mary and Joseph. Pledged to be married. Expecting a child. Ready to settle down. But then Caesar’s decree came and life got detoured. “So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David” (Luke 2:4). From home to Bethlehem was almost 90 miles and over 1,000 feet in elevation to climb with a very pregnant Mary. I would call that a detour! But God was up to something. Getting the pregnant virgin (Isaiah 7:14) to the promised birthplace of the Savior (Micah 5:2).

That puts our detours in perspective. God is up to something—getting the right people to the right places to accomplish his purposes. So take a deep breath, trust His plan, and thank God for detours!