I’m a planner. I know where I want to be five years from now and what is on my list for today. But I find the older I get, the less useful this personal roadmap becomes to me. I’ve learned that I can plan all I want, but things change. And I need to change my expectations with my changing circumstances. I need to be flexible. This is true for long-term plans as well as what happens today.
The roadmap I create for myself becomes less relevant as time goes on because, sometimes, the road doesn’t lead where I thought it did. Often, I find my road didn’t keep up with changes in circumstance and it becomes like trying to navigate with an out-of-date map. I’m trying to get on a road that no longer leads where God is calling me.
I was at my nephew’s graduation recently and the speaker exhorted the young grads to “use a compass, not a roadmap.” Good advice. I want to follow Jesus. I want to get closer to Him every day. And I have the text and the Holy Spirit to lead me there. I don’t know what the terrain will be like, or what the loops or turns of the road will consist of. I do know there will be places along the way that I wouldn’t have mapped out – some joyful, some painful. I’m willing to toss out my map because I know where my compass is pointing. And He is the prize at the end of the road.
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy.” Psalm 16:11
Where do you need to put down your road map and pick up the compass?
