Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” declares the Lord. Isaiah 55:8

You don’t have to be a “type A” personality to get annoyed when you have to take a detour. Detours upset your plans, change your schedule, cause unexpected delays, and take you places you didn’t intend to go. Yet the fact is, life is full of detours.

When my daughter and her husband were confronted with some unexpected financial challenges, Bonnie said, “I’ve come to understand that the detour is the path.” What does that mean? If you believe that the circumstances of your life are allowed by a loving God—no matter what they are—you have to believe that the detour that wasn’t your idea is the path He wants you to take.

How can you have a song in your heart and a smile when you are forced to take the detour? While it isn’t easy, you can learn that the detour is the path, and when you acknowledge that, it’s quite amazing how your attitude changes. Here’s how you can be happy while you are taking the detour.

Realize that there are no detours from God’s point of view. None? None whatsoever, no exceptions. God told Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). God knows what the detour will accomplish that would never take place any other way. So God says, “The detour is the path—just trust me. I know where it comes out and that’s where I want you to go.”
You can find happiness on the detour when you acknowledge that nothing happens by chance. Joseph had a long detour in his life, one you can read about in the book of Genesis. Abducted by his half-brothers and sold into slavery, he ended up as a conscripted slave in Egypt. His idea? Not for a moment. The detour was the path, the one that led to the position of Prime Minister. When he finally confronted the brothers and had his chance for revenge, he simply said, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.”

Sometimes you see the hand of God in the detour and sometimes you take it by faith, trusting the heart of God when you cannot see His hand. On the morning of 9/11 one fellow, headed for his office at the World Trade Center in New York City, forgot an important paper and had to turn around and go back home for it. The detour was the path that saved his life.

You can find happiness along the detour when you understand He walks with you on the detour. Moses wrote that the LORD actually carried his people on that 40-year detour “just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked, until you came to this place” (Deuteronomy 1:31). One of the most amazing promises Jesus made to His followers is that of His spiritual presence. “Never will I leave you,” He promised, and the syntax of the promise means “not even for a moment.” (Hebrews 13:5-6). He never grows weary. He never loses His way. Remember the detour is the path.
You can be happy on the detour when you remind yourself, “God knows the way.” When I’m on a detour, I tend to get nervous. No direction signs, no gas stations, only wide open spaces that seem to go nowhere. But then I have to remember, God made the whole landscape. He’s never lost. He promised, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV).

Resource reading: Deuteronomy 1:19-46.