The Route That Doesn't Make Sense

If you've ever used Waze, the crowd-sourced navigation app, you know the experience. You're heading somewhere familiar, and suddenly Waze tells you to exit the highway and turn down a side street you've never noticed. The route looks wrong. Every instinct says stay on the main road. But Waze sees what you cannot — a three-car pileup two miles ahead, construction closing a lane, congestion building from a stadium event. It processes data from thousands of other drivers in real time, and it knows something you don't.

You have a choice in that moment. You can ignore the instruction and stick with what looks right to you. Or you can trust what you cannot yet see and take the turn.

Faith works the same way. The Almighty sees the full map of our lives — every obstacle ahead, every delay we'd never anticipate, every shortcut through what looks like wilderness. When He says turn here, the route rarely makes sense from where we're sitting. Abraham heading to a land he'd never seen. Moses walking toward the sea with an army behind him. Joseph rotting in a prison cell on the way to a palace.

Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." That verse isn't asking us to stop thinking. It's asking us to trust that God processes what we cannot see.

Take the turn. He knows the road ahead.