God May Take You The Long Way

This is born out of something my own soul needs.

There are times in our life we feel lost, forgotten, and overlooked in God's care for us. Maybe you haven't met some timeline in your life and you feel behind others your age. Perhaps circumstances have been terrible: sickness, money loss, or job issues. Maybe you feel you have a particular struggle with sin. One that is too heavy for you to bear. You feel forgotten, abandoned, and confused.

If one of these scenarios resonate with you, I want to submit to you that God might be taking you the long way.

God’s “confusing” decisions for our good

Travel with me to the ancient times of Israel when they were freed from their slavery in Egypt:

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea.

Exodus 13:17-18

Read that text again. If you grab your actual Bible and open to the back where those maps are that you never use, find the one that shows Israels’ wilderness journey. Some of them have a dotted line where Israel could have gone here, through the Philistine country. And an actual line where God lead them, which is quite a longer journey.

God has his reasons

Let’s place this text within its context. God’s people had been in bondage to Pharaoh and have recently been freed. With that promised liberty just out of reach, and a guide at their helm, they venture off with God. After numerous plagues, threats, and conversations, Israel is finally on her way to freedom.

Then they come to a crossroads. They can go the shorter route to where God has promised them freedom, or they can go the longer route which leads to another impossible obstacle, the Red Sea. God leads them the long way.

Good students of the Bible ask hard questions of it. We should ask right now: “Why is this so? Why is God, after so much time of waiting, taking Israel the long way? Hasn’t she been in the limbo phase long enough?”

Notice: “God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” (Exodus 13:18)

God has a specific reason for his leadings, He knows that if they go through the Philistine country they won’t make it. They might get scared and run back into bondage and slavery of Egypt. They might become their own demise, so God leads them for their good down a harder path. God’s way of leading is not decided out of ignorance but wisdom.

Israel is a mirror for us

One of the reasons we have the stories of Israel’s history is so that we can use it as a mirror for our own lives. It can teach us things about God because from it we have a 30,000ft view. In this story, what do we learn about why God chooses to take his people the long way? The harder way? The difficult way? Which cause them to be uneasy... to feel lost... forgotten...even overlooked?

Because God, in His wisdom, knows the shorter way will not be what is best for Israel. In their limited perspective, they do not understand. How do you face your own life in relation to this? When God’s way and timing seem different than what you expected or wanted? Could it be that God is simply taking you the long way? Could God have insight and knowledge into you and your heart and your future that your tiny human perspective lacks? Could God’s greatest mercy be in taking you the long way?

That seems hard to us. We like the shorter way because our propensity is towards the quick, we feel in control when we can go at the speed we desire. But God knows better. God knows time forms trusting hearts.

“The Lord often leads us according to the needs of our heart, not always according to its desires.” - Wayne Stiles

Obstacles & Waiting lead to faith

God leads us by the long way for our good. We often can't see it. This is why faith is so important in the Christian life. Because when we struggle to understand, we have to hold onto promises from God. Consider why God led Israel to the Red Sea. Israel needed the Red Sea to carry with them for generations. The many obstacles waiting for them in the Wilderness would require faith in God’s ability to do what He said He would do. When they face them they can look back and say “God got us out of Egypt, He got us through the Red Sea, surely we can trust Him now.” To look back and remember “God is faithful to his promises”. What in your life has taught you this truth?

Don’t the scriptures say “Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.” (Exodus 14:31)

Situations like this in our lives are meant to produce greater faith. Greater trust. Greater intimacy with God. When we reach the end of our human abilities and we stop at a place where we say “the only way forward is if God does something here”. God lead us to places like that in our life because we need it. We need to be reminded we are finite. We are not self-sufficient. We are tiny, He is massive. What we learn in these big moments we are to bring into the small, mundane ones.

The Purpose

God has a purpose in the long way. He has reasons, designs, awareness you don't presently see. So if you struggle with your habitual sin, and you wonder why it just doesn't evaporate... God may be taking you the long way. Don't use that as an excuse to sin. But trust He is with you in the journey.

If you find yourself in a place of life you don't enjoy, God may be taking you the long way. He knows you need some more time growing. Getting you ready.

If you find yourself feeling lost in life, looking up at God confused and feeling overlooked... God might be taking you the long way. The text doesn't say God told Israel His reasons... perhaps this is His way of trying to cultivate trust, for the journey to the promised land is wrought with times where Israel needs to trust God. And the same is true for us, our journey to heaven is wrought with times where we need to trust God.

God’s Timing is for your Good

In God’s timing He has a design of love. In his opening and closing of doors, He has a design of love. In His ordaining where we are in life, He has a design of love. In His feeling near or far, He has a design of love. In His punishment of sin, He has a design of love. At every point in your life you can confidently look up and know God is doing everything for your good.

Ultimately, God takes us the long way that we may be with Him more. Though I have cried tears and felt lost when I am on that long way. I have fallen in love with God along it. I have seen him move and believe that on the other side of this I will have a special memory of just how much I can trust God to come through for me. I might need that in the future. I might need the lessons I learn on this journey for a future one.

God is not primarily after your comfort

God's primary goal in your life is not your comfort, is not your earthly joy, and is not your best life now. God's primary goal in all He does in your life is that you might treasure Him and glorify Him. In these we find a joy incomparable to the things of this earth.

Do not give up trusting God on the long way. You are there precisely because He loves you. And the promise of the book of Exodus is even in your stupid decisions and sins along that way, he started the journey out of love, he sustains you on the journey out of love, and if you lean on Him... the day will come where you make it into the promise land. Not always in this life, but the one to come. Until that moment, let us take another step each day, trusting the good, sovereign, design of love from our Father on the long way.

Traveling with you,

Josh.

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