"Road Work Ahead - Detour." A pictograph sign depicted a person holding a traffic flag.
These are signs that most motorists dread. All you can think of is, "How long am I going to have to wait?" If you are like me and you don't leave much time for delays, you could become very impatient with these unexpected stops.
Of course, summer is the season for highway work and it's hard to go anywhere without running into some type of road project. Believe me, I have tried. The other week, I had to go to a town about 25 miles away and I knew one of the main routes there was undergoing repairs.
I picked an alternate route that I thought would take me there without any delays. I ran into three highway projects, but was fortunate that none of them delayed me more than a minute or two.
After giving these highway project delays some thought, the question arose: What if the state did not repair or improve roadways?
We already complain about potholes hazards, and the lack of direct routes or roads needed to bear the amount of traffic they see. Imagine how many more complaints there would be if the state and municipalities did nothing to repair, improve or expand streets and highways.
The same holds true for our spiritual lives. It takes time to recognize our sins and faults, and more time to work on eliminating them to the live the life that God expects of us.
We think it would be much easier just to race through life oblivious to these projects of our spiritual highway, but before we knew it, we would be bogged down in the ruts, potholes and crumbling path of sin.
Taking the time to recognize and correct our faults can be summed up in another sign you sometimes see at a highway project - "Temporary Inconvenience - Permanent Improvement."
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As we travel toward God,
we must sometimes stop to continue.