Obstacles are not opposing you but are merely firm and gentle “re-routers”.
It is important not to view that which stands in your way as your “enemy”. It can often be your best friend, sending you on a detour that takes you around what could have been your biggest stumbling block. You do not know what is around the corner in front of you – but the Omnipresent Mind of God DOES know.
It could be God sending you, not on a detour, but sending you in the direction, sending you to the location, sending you to the experience you were really supposed to be heading in the first place. God just used the thoughts and desires that got you out of the house in order to then use other “detours” to get you where God intended for you to go from the beginning.
How many times in your life did you have an intense desire, a strong feeling that you really, really wanted or needed to go somewhere and do something – then get there and find that the store was out of business, the business had closed early that day, the person did not live there anymore, you get to the baseball stadium that you bought tickets for over three months ago and it unexpectedly started raining, thunder and lightning? Anything and anytime you really, really wanted and really, really tried to go somewhere and do something and no matter how determined you were, you couldn't do it? For whatever reason, what you went there for was not possible that day. Then, after a few minutes of frustration, you decided to look around you for something else to do. You started to think since you were out already, and some distance from your home, was there any place or anything near you that you would like to see or like to do? Why waste all the energy and intention that got you to the place where you could not do what you thought you were going to do? Perhaps you saw an advertisement left on the closed door of something that looked interesting. Perhaps you were now only a few blocks from a new exhibit at a museum, a coffee shop, a special hardware store for that special screw you really needed to finish the project at home that has been unfinished for so long?
Once you then proceeded to go in the new direction, go check out the new situation, you then proceeded to have a wonderful day, met a wonderful person, learned a wonderful lesson – or just bought that special screw you needed that you have not been able to find in the other hardware stores you have visited.
Once I was in England and had not been able to visit a friend during my visit. My flight back to America was in a few hours and I received a phone call from him. I told him I really did not have enough time to meet him for lunch and get to the airport in time to catch my flight. He said his chauffeur would most certainly be able to get me to the plane on time after we had a little lunch. I agreed and we had a wonderful lunch and time of sharing.
Then I get in the car and it was like an experience form an old movie. The car was an old London taxi that had been re-finished and made to look like new. His driver was an old-time chauffeur with a ramrod straight back and a cigarette permanently jutting out at a ninety degree angle from his mouth. He must have been a chauffer to some important people in his past, who did not want to feel any of the road on which they were being driven, because he drove so slow and carefully that I was not aware of any bumps. When he made a right or left hand turn, I was not even aware of any turning movement. It was very surreal – like not real. I was amazed at the cigarette in his mouth. He drove so carefully that the ash from his cigarette never fell off. He did not put the ash in the ashtray, the cigarette just kept dangling from his mouth while the cigarette kept burning and burning. All of a sudden I realized that the cigarette had reached the filter and had stopped burning. But the ash was still attached. To this day, I do not remember if he ever did take the cigarette from his mouth. The picture in my mind has it permanently jutting out from his mouth with two to three inches of ash firmly attached.
I was utterly entranced by the steadiness and smoothness of his driving. I then started to realize that because of his incredible chauffeur driving skills that I was very close to getting at the airport late and missing my flight to America. I kept telling him to please speed up, but he acted like he was the only one in the car and either could not speed up or refused to go faster and risk bumping his passenger in the seat. What an obstacle to me he was becoming. I had a plane to catch and I could have ran faster than he was driving the car. No matter the strength or volume of my pleading, he just kept keeping on doing what he was doing. He looked like a robot with a covering of human skin.
I finally get to the airport and rush to the terminal only to find that I had just missed my flight. As I was standing at the closed boarding gate, I heard an announcement that the flight I had just missed had just ran off the runway during its take-off. Somehow, the tires on one side of the plane disintegrated, the plane fell to that side and the landing gear had broken through the bottom of the plane.
I guess you can imagine my sense of wonderment and my sense of relief. I also am sure you can guess that I was ever so thankful for that old-time chauffeur who just would not listed to any attempt I had to move the obstacle, him, out of my way to catch my plane.
If I had been on that plane, I might have taken a boat to America instead.
I caught the next flight but have never forgotten that day when I met an immoveable obstacle and since I was riding in the car, I couldn’t even go around it. I was living in it. The immoveable obstacle was definitely my best friend that day.
Now, whenever I am frustrated by my lack of ability to move an obstacle in front of me, I get a very vivid picture in my mind of that chauffeur with the ramrod straight back, the stone face with the cigarette jutting ever so perfectly straight from his stone face, driving ever so carefully, ever so smoothly and how I had thanked God for that chauffeur, the obstacle that kept me from catching a plane destined for an accident.
God uses whatever thoughts and whatever desires, whatever hang-ups we have in order to continually move us in the direction that God wants us to go. If God tried to tell you what you would learn or who the new person was that you were going to meet, you would not understand the relevance or the purpose. How could God tell you of the store that has the special item you have been searching and searching if you did not even know that the store existed? But you DID understand the thoughts and the emotions that were stimulating your motor of intention to get you where you thought you really, really wanted go to or experience.
Take a moment when you think you are up against an obstacle in your path. Think a thought of gratitude, feel an emotion of gratitude, for anything that seems to be “opposing” you now. Regardless of our intentions, things in life happen for the glory of God. Trust God about that. As you are thinking and feeling this prayerful gratitude, you will get another feeling, another thought, gently suggesting you go in another direction. Take this gentle voice and move in the direction it is suggesting. You will usually find that listening to this gentle voice was the right choice for the right experience for you – right now in your eternal spiritual journey.
If you look at an obstacle as an enemy, you will treat it as an enemy. You will be emotionally resisting it. Say to it, "Hi Friend". Open your eyes and look around, open your heart and feel what it is telling you and you just might find that “Obstacle” WAS the best friend you ever had.
