Scripture:
Paul and Silas traveled through the area of Phrygia and Galatia, because the Holy Spirit had prevented them from preaching the word in the province of Asia at that time. Acts 16:6
“The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?” Proverbs 20:24
Reflection:
Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. His mother became mostly deaf due to a childhood illness and used an ear trumpet to hear. As a child, Alexander would speak near his mother’s forehead so she could feel the vibrations of his voice. Coming from a family of distinguished speech therapists, Alexander learned from an early age how to communicate with the hearing impaired. He followed his father’s footsteps and became a voice teacher, later becoming a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University in 1873. There, he met his future wife, Mabel Hubbard, who had lost her hearing from scarlet fever. Though working with the hearing impaired was challenging, it inspired Alexander to experiment with transmitting sound waves over wires, leading to his invention of the telegraph and the telephone.
Reflecting on his life, Alexander once said, “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one which has opened for us.”
Solomon, the wisest person that has lived said; “The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?” Proverbs 20:24. How much emotional energy do we spend on trying to put all the pieces of our lives or jobs in such a way that it makes sense…to us. I love when things go according to my plan. It feels rewarding, likely because our brains release dopamine when a plan is successfully executed. For those unfamiliar, dopamine is a neurotransmitter produced in our bodies that helps transmit messages between nerve cells. It’s what gives us that “good job” feeling when we accomplish something.
However, sometimes our plans don’t go according to our plan. It can seem like weeks, months, or even years of challenges—closed doors, family crises, or physical struggles—interruptions to what we thought was “the plan.”
As followers of Jesus, it is wise to make plans, but as Solomon reminded us, we can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?
It’s not that we don’t try to understand the circumstances of our days, but sometimes it might be better to release to God what we can control and not try to wrestle control of those things that we cannot control. A closed door can be just as much of a miracle as an open one. Trials may turn out to be God’s way of blessing our journey. While we easily recognize blessings and open doors as God’s hand at work, we often see difficulties and closed doors as obstacles. Perhaps the real miracle lies in a closed door, in things not going according to our plan, prompting us to either change our direction, look elsewhere, or not try to figure it all out, at least not in the moment. Sometimes it takes years for us to see what was truly going on in our lives and how God was moving behind the scenes. So, maybe we should abide by Solomon’s admonition: “The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way.”
Thank you, Lord, for guiding our steps, even when we do not have all the answers!
David
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