No Wrong Turns: Beating Your Fear of Life’s Detours and Delays

Have you had this experience? You learn someone is closer to your age than you thought, or maybe even younger than you, and yet they’ve accomplished the things you once expected for yourself at this stage.

They’re who you wanted to be or where you wanted to be in your life right now.

Yet, your journey has looked so different. Different than theirs and so vastly different than you had planned years ago.

My life has been filled with what I think of as detours, false starts, wrong turns, and years of wandering as I wait for results beyond my control. These times of reaching for and dreaming of a destination that seems to always lie beyond my grasp can be tiring and discouraging.

The detours I’ve taken, the time seemingly wasted, appear so pointless. Why did I waste time pursuing a different career when I’d end up coming back to my first desire to be a novelist? Why did God allow, or even lead me on so many detours away from the destination I believe He’s called me to?

Why has He done the same thing, not just in my career, but in the journey of my whole life?

We can sometimes chalk up these delays and rough routes to our own poor choices, made apart from a desire to serve and obey God in our lives. But, other apparent wrong turns can happen even when we’re doing our best to seek God and His will in all things.

When frustrated by one of these moments of encountering someone more successful in reaching my goals than I’ve been, I realized something about my younger self.

If I had achieved years ago what I was then and still am now trying to attain, it would have been a disaster. I wouldn’t have had the experience and positioning I have now that would be necessary to bring success out of such an opportunity.

I needed this time of waiting and wandering. I needed the detours. I needed the turns I didn’t understand.

All of those routes were unexpected to me, but perfectly mapped out and planned by God to prepare me for what lies ahead.

I remember hearing of a missionary who always wanted to go to one country and felt called by God to do so. But, He blocked her from going to that country of her heart and instead sent her elsewhere. She was frustrated and confused as to why God would send her somewhere that wasn’t the location of the call she’d been so sure of.

Years later, she ended up serving as a missionary in powerful ways in the country where she’d always wanted to work. From that later point, she looked back on what had seemed to be a wasted detour in her life, and instead saw how very necessary it had been to prepare her for the work she would do for the rest of her days.

We can’t see the map of our lives in advance, but we do know the Cartographer, the One Who designed and laid out the map of our lives before time began.

He promises He’ll take us on the best paths and the best route. What I often forget is that He won’t just bring us safely to a perfect destination in the end—He’ll use every trail and every turn to mold us, change us, grow us, teach us, and equip us for the next steps.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
– Psalm 40:2

We don’t need to be anxious or worried about the delays and unexpected swerves in our lives. Because the truth is there are no wrong turns or detours in God’s map for our lives.

Every path, every single step, is planned and will be used for our good and His glory—not just in the eternal future, but now, and in a year or twenty years down the road.

Has your life gone in directions you didn’t expect? Do you look back on periods you feel were wasted?

Maybe you need to carefully trace your finger along the map of your life from that period to where you are now. How did God change you, grow you during that time in such a way that prepared you for where you are now? How are you better equipped for your present because of where you went and what you went through in your past?

Are you in a period of what feels like aimless wandering? Maybe, like me, you’ve been there for quite a while. This time isn’t wasted and it isn’t wandering at all. God is taking you on a route that is preparing you for what lies ahead.

Farther down the road, you will be able to look back on this point in the map and say, “That’s what God was doing.” And you will be awed and thankful for every moment of the journey.

In faith, we can be thankful instead of fearful and anxious now. We can take every step with praise and trust, knowing that even this path has a purpose—it is being used right now for God’s glory and to prepare us for the great things He has in store for us, just ahead.

Have you felt like you took a wrong turn in your life? Have you wondered why God led you through something hard? Please share!

Photos by Hello I’m Nik, Andrew Neel, Mahkeo, and Wim van ‘t Einde on Unsplash. Original graphics designed by Jerusha Agen.