Back to School With Siri

I am sure most of us have seen all of the back-to-school pictures posted all over social media over the past few days. It’s fun seeing all the kiddos with their new school clothes and clean haircuts. Parents are breathing a sigh of relief as routine and schedules come back into play after the fluidity of summer. All this is wonderful, except for one thing… back to school traffic! On Monday morning my 23-minute commute turned into an hour. Luckily, I planned for this, but I wasn’t happy. The most frustrating part of the morning was how utterly useless Siri was. I know how to get to the church without her, but I had hoped that she would guide me around the jam-packed school zones that are conveniently placed along my mourning route. Well, I was very wrong. She spent 10 minutes guiding me through random neighborhoods and back roads only to find that I had traveled in a 2-mile circle. As I was driving through unknown neighborhoods and making random turns, I realized something about myself.

I hate not knowing where I am going.

I knew where my final destination was, but I had no idea how I was going to get there. I finally had to turn Siri off and figure it out for myself.

As I was boiling with frustration while I was zig-zagging through school zones, I took a few deep breaths and started to think about how this relates to my life with God.

I know God’s big plan for my life… to form me more and more into the image of Jesus. But the reality is that I have no idea how he is going about it in the course of any given day, week, month, or year. I often feel like he is leading me on a pointless goose chase or leading me in circles. His route doesn’t avoid traffic. Sometimes it seems like he is intentionally leading me into traffic jams.

Siri’s confusion has led me to reflect this week on how much of my life I feel like I have to have figured out. I need to know the plan. I need to know the next steps. I need to know what is around the corner. But God, in his kindness and goodness, has been reminding me that life with him doesn’t work that way. I often don’t sense his presence as I try to sit with him in silence each morning. If I am honest I would rather get my day going. But in the silence, he is inviting me to trust that, even in the silence, he is doing something in my heart. As I learn how to be a father, he is teaching me what it means to practice patience and unconditional love even when frustration seems to be the only thing in my heart as I chase Soren around before bedtime. God often uses the zig-zagging of life to form us more and more into Jesus’ image.  We can either choose to trust his process or go about life in our own way.

This morning as I was looking at the map to find the shortest route to get to church, I decided that I was going to follow the path Siri had picked out. It didn’t make sense. I felt myself getting anxious and even a little frustrated, but you know what? I still got to church on time to drop Soren off at preschool and get to my morning meeting.

So, may you be encouraged to trust God this week, even if he isn’t making much sense. Trust the process. He’s got it.

Grace and peace ‘til we rise in glory.