The Lord says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.  I will advise you and watch over you.  Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control. Psalm 32:8-9

     It was Thanksgiving eve and the family was loaded in the car and on the road for a much-anticipated holiday weekend with Grandma and Grandpa some 150 miles north, in southern Iowa.  My enthusiasm was dampened a bit by the deteriorating weather conditions, though.  A cold front was on the move east from the Plains into the Midwest. Electrical wires and road signs were already sporting ice as light precipitation fell.  Highway surfaces would eventually suffer the same fate, making travel treacherous.

     As we approached the Interstate entrance ramp, our primary route north, a stalled vehicle blocked both lanes of traffic just before the interchange.  We weren't going any further until the car was moved, so I pulled into the parking lot of a gas station/restaurant to wait.  As a regional radio station gave the uneasy forecast and ticked off temperatures in area towns, I noticed the report from a community 40 miles to the northeast was well above freezing. 

     I made a snap decision to take an alternate route and pick up a main highway farther east.  Pulling the car onto the highway, comfortable with my choice of a new route, I noticed the stalled car was being pushed off the road.

     I was now committed to my new route, though. Roads were wet but free of ice as we traveled. 

     As we made our way across the state line word came across the air waves that our original route, the Interstate, was a skating rink, making travel to the west hazardous at best.  But we arrived at our destination after a smooth and uneventful trip.  As a family, we bowed our heads and thanked God for the unexpected prompting to take a better route.

     God doesn't always take us around the storm.  Often he leads us through them.  There are times, though, when He intervenes in unique, circumstantial ways to guide us to a better pathway, sparing us from danger and trouble.

     I wonder how often God is at work around us ready to direct and, instead of alertly responding, we're too busy, too self-absorbed, too mentally-stubborn to notice.  How often might He have powerfully intervened, but we were too obsessed with our own pre-determined course?