Detour

I have come to despise this sign as I travel home, I live in Avondale and the fastest way to get home is on the South/Western motorway, formerly known as the Mangere motorway.  As everyone in Auckland would know the motorways are being upgraded, extended, transformed to tend to our  fledgling transport system. This means from time to time detour signs are put up on the motorway so that work could be done.  This always happens when I'm on my way home be it from work or church. 

Despite living in Auckland all my life, I could honestly say I rarely ventured out of South Auckland unless I really needed to (uni, work, friends), so the back streets of West and Central Auckland are not familiar to me. My first Detour I thought was great, a chance for me to do a central tiki tour to enable me to come up with different routes to get home if ever I was lost. 

That was probably my only pleasant experience, after a while I just loathed the signs, I often ignored the detour routes and just went on instinct.  I would always be amazed at how I would take a turn into a street on instinct believing it will lead me to a path familiar to me to get home, 10/10 it did.  Then last Sunday I noticed yet another detour this time taking the hillsborough off ramp I hadn't taken this detour before and like other times before I didn't follow the route.  Bad idea...I soon realised I was venturing further west than intended, knowing this my thought was to identify a main street that would head back to central Auckland.  I found one and sure enough it took me home.

When I came to a red light it dawned on me that maybe God was talking to me.  I often praise and thank Him for guiding me but this time I thought you are talking to me and have been talking to me through every detour I've faced.  I cried as I remembered detours in my life be it by my own making or through events beyond my control and through it He was leading me home.  The gut instinct was not me but Him. 

I do recognise that God is leading me back home, and am currently at a point in life where I know I've gone off the familiar path to unknown territory and desperately seeking God to take me to the path that leads home.  I will say the road where He leads is often a pleasant one, filled with peace and direction.