“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9 ESV).
Seeing God’s hand through our whole move still amazes me. Two things happened this week that initially I thought were messing with our “plan.” Looking back, I realize those “problems” were actually solutions! On Tuesday, when the movers showed up at our house, they loaded the truck lickety-split. The only problem was… the movers took off for our apartment before we did! By the time we headed out, the movers were at least 10 minutes ahead. We were worried they would arrive first and not know exactly where to park and be standing around waiting.
The first half of our route is interstate, nothing exciting there, all very normal. The second half of our trip consists of regular roads since no major highway connects our departure to our destination. On Sunday, we drove over to pick up the keys to our new place and check it out. All went smoothly as planned. On moving day however, the GPS told us to use exit 136, but I questioned it. “Didn’t it tell me on Sunday to get off at exit 159? I really don’t think this is the way we went last time…” Within a few minutes, we both knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was a very different way. The GPS turned us down a dirt road in the middle of farming country! Already afraid of running late, we decided to go ahead wherever the GPS led us.
We bumped along, blazing down at least two different dirt roads before popping out onto paved but unfamiliar territory. After making a wrong turn and needing to try again, we finally made it back to a recognizable street. “That GPS is crazy; we must have punched in the wrong address.” “No, I used the address saved in the system from Sunday. It is the same address!” While talking smack about the GPS, we arrived at our apartment. I then noticed the estimated arrival time on the GPS had changed from what it initially said at the beginning of our trip. The farm road detour shaved ten minutes off our time. Astounded and bewildered, we were happy to find the movers had not yet arrived. We parked, opened the door, and walked back out just in time to see them pull up.
On Thursday, we drove back to give our house a final cleaning and spent the night with my parents. On Friday, we again traveled back to our apartment, wondering which way the GPS would send us this time. It used the Sunday route, no dirt roads in sight. Ryan and I are still thanking God for how He orchestrated our arrival on moving day. God helps us with big and little problems and has guided us the whole way. Why would we ever doubt Him and His plan when it is so much better than ours!