Hitting Potholes

It was a day like many. Our dog, Jack, was in the backseat. My mother and I were in the front. We knew where we were headed — the beach — just a five minute drive away. I pictured Jack and I walking along the grassy knoll near the shoreline. My mother would wait in the car watching kite surfers in the distance. We turned down one familiar road and then another to reach our planned destination. Then, with no warning, we were jolted with a mighty thud! I had hit a pothole. The road was black, the hole was black. I just didn’t see it coming. Firm plans were now anything but as the front tire began to leak.

Can you identify? Life is full of potholes that deviate us from our plans. What was once a certain path to follow, in a moment fills with doubt, even despair. We wake up to a planned day, when in the middle of it, we get that call from the hospital that changes everything. Perhaps we are knocked off course when a relationship deemed to last forever breaks apart. Maybe that promised job promotion, unfairly in our opinion, goes to someone else. The college we dreamed of attending denies our application. Life is filled with our plans; equally it is filled with potholes that knock us off our course.

No one is exempt from hitting a pothole, but we have a promise from God to replace the worry, sorrow, uncertainty, and aloneness, with hope and inner peace. Jesus spoke the words Himself in Matthew 28:20, “Be sure of this,” He said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Jesus is never surprised by a pothole. He does not wring His hands in despair. He knows the way we are going and He knows His own strength and peace is ours for the taking. His words, “I am with you always,” are full of comfort, courage, strength, peace, hope, wisdom, and joy. How do we know that? Because Jesus is the epitome of everything good. He is perfect and holy. He makes no mistakes. He is within us through the Holy Spirit. It is because of the indwelling Holy Spirit that we have everything we need to get us through anything at all.

Potholes will come. There is no doubt about it, but Jesus’ guidance and filling with His power will come, too. Be sure in your own heart of who He is and of all He has to offer to those who have received Him into their lives. No pothole can thwart God’s purposes for you or quash His peace within you. He is stronger than any pothole.