Bewildered (01/18/2025)

I went into the big city for a meeting. I wasn’t worried. It was at my old workplace. I’d driven there and back hundreds of times. The trip in went well – just as expected. Trouble showed up when I went to leave and go back home. I got to the end of the long drive and found that my usual route of turning left from the drive was no longer an option. So, I turned right thinking that I’d make a u-turn down the way. Fifteen minutes later, I pulled off the road into a parking lot. I wasn’t technically lost. But I was quite bewildered.

I eventually turned on my GPS and it redirected me to roads that began to look familiar. And eventually, I made my way back to the major highway I’d always used to go to and from work. My dad taught me years ago to never panic, one can get anywhere from where one currently is. He’d smile and add, it might not be pretty, but it’s possible. My dad reminded me of other trailblazers in history. He had a lot of wisdom packed into a most unassuming appearance.

“I weren’t never lost, but I was bewildered a time or two,” Daniel Boone told a reporter once. He and my dad would have gotten along, I think. As I think about my driving episode, I like Boone’s explanation. I never was lost, not really, but the change in landmarks and street access surely had me bewildered.

I get bewildered frequently in non-driving moments, as well. You know, in moments when I look about myself and ask myself how I got so far off course. I deviate a tad this day and a tad more the next, and before I know it, my spiritual terrain isn’t familiar. I thank the LORD for the wisdom of “experience”; put another way, I am prone to making “wrong turns.”

Experience has taught me that when that happens, it is time to sit down and have a humble conversation with the LORD. I’m in unfamiliar terrain, but I know the LORD sees me and loves me. And I know that the LORD’s love and grace can transport me out of my bewildered state.

The LORD created us and daily calls to us. As we make our way to life in the LORD, we may find ourselves straying a bit here and a bit there. With faith, let us cry out to our LORD who never loses sight of us and who never wants to lose us. Let us admit with humility that we are “bewildered.” And let us open ourselves fully to the LORD’s love and guidance and grace in the moment.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.