It seems you can barely go anywhere at the moment without encountering a lane or whole road cordoned off for works. Often it appears very little seems to be happening to fix whatever the problem is. What about the roadworks of life? Those areas we have cordoned off with little to nothing being done to fix the problem whilst we trundle along diversions that frustrate us everyday.
I was ready to go on a full scale rant about how inconvenient and frustrating all these roadworks are and how incompetent the authorities are to be having so many roadworks at the same time and then it struck me: What would be the point of such a rant?
As I thought about it more, God shifted my focus towards the roadworks of life. The cordoned off parts of our lives where we just ignore a problem without doing anything about it. The permanent diversions we have put in place to avoid addressing issues and faults that need to be tackled.
The starting point of this was a couple of weeks ago. As I was driving home from the train station, I encountered an extraordinary amount of roadworks, lane closures and diversions. This is a journey that should not take more than about 35 minutes. However, on this occasion it took nearly an hour with what seemed like never ending roadworks and diversions. As the frustration built up in me, I started to wonder if I would ever get home.
The first motorway was closed, so we all trundled down a single carriageway diversion at a snail’s pace down to the next motorway to find that closed also. Back onto the previous motorway (this stretch now apparently open and the only open motorway to get through Glasgow). No sooner was I back on the motorway than another sign stated the road ahead was closed. This meant we would all be forced off and onto an enforced sightseeing tour of Glasgow (which is lovely, but not when you are tired and have no desire for such a tour). All everyone wanted to do was reach our destinations in a timely manner, but this all seemed too much to ask of our road infrastructure. Eventually I came out the other side of Glasgow City Centre and back onto the motorway. I took a turning off as I knew there was another planned closure only to find more roadworks on the diversion route! Eventually I made it home, somewhat weary and frustrated and instead of being able to relax, being completely wound up by all these roadworks.
I admit, I did lose my cool a bit during the journey, perhaps understandably given how frustrating what should have been a simple journey had become. Then the other evening, yet another motorway closure and onto the official diversion route only to find yet more roadworks and temporary traffic lights. It is enough to make you scream! In fact, there were so many temporary traffic lights I lost count of how many there were and wondered if there were any spare traffic cones left in the country!
What was clear in most of these roadworks was the complete lack of work being done. It was bad enough that all these closures and diversions were in place, but it really tipped me over the edge finding so little work actually being done.
On pondering all this and wondering why a little more co-ordination could not happen so at least there are no roadworks on a diversion route, I related to something about many of our own lives: We too have many areas cordoned off – under construction, works in progress and yet little to no progress being seen in those areas. How many of us have never ending roadworks in our life?
Often it is far easier to simply cone off an area of life and put a diversion in place rather than addressing issues and fixing them before they become much bigger issues that then affect others around us. We often find more issues on the diversion routes. It would have been much easier if we faced up to the original issue and dealt with it rather than adding in all these unnecessary complications to life.
I know there are areas of my life I have been meaning to address for a long time and have never quite got round to addressing. I know that if I was to address them, then things would be much easier, yet I still just press on, perhaps hoping in vain the issue will resolve itself one day. Perhaps this is my wake up call to not just put out the roadwork cones, but actually get on with fixing the metaphorical roads of my life.
It is very easy to cordon off a section of life – be that relationships, health, past abuse, personality traits, finances and so on without actually taking any action to fix those areas. When roadwork cones go out it merely causes traffic to divert, it does not fix the issue. I have seen cones blocking off parts of roads where a pothole has grown to the point where the road is so dangerous and these cones will sit there for weeks, sometimes months before anything is actually done. All the time drivers have to divert away from the danger causing increased and continued frustrations.
It is the same in our own lives: If you have simply cordoned off an area of life and have just put a diversion in place then it is time to attend to the problem and fix it so the diversion is no longer needed. More importantly, if you address an issue early it wont grow into a bigger issue that will plague and ultimately master you.
Jesus came that we can have life and have it to the full (John 10:10). Maybe you feel like you are existing more than living sometimes. It does not have to be this way. The problems in your life can be fixed because God is in the business of mending and restoring us. You will be able to move on and live life minus the diversions and roadworks.
Just as roadworks and subsequent diversions cause frustration and delays to journeys, so too do the roadworks of life. It is different if there is work being done to address a problem and some areas require greater attention and more time. However, we can probably all think of at least one area where we have simply put out the cones and put a diversion in place to avoid addressing the issue at hand. Taking the diversion builds frustration we know that if the issue was addressed, life would be easier, but we tend to ignore the problem and hope it will just go away.
Jesus said that all who come to Him are a new life for the old is gone and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). He also tought we should cast our burdens onto him for he cares for us (Psalm 55:22, 1 Peter 5:7) It is time to stop living the old life by keeping the diversions in place and allow God through his Holy Spirit to come in and fix those areas of our lives that have plagued us for too long.
Perhaps you have struggled with addiction but have never addressed the underlying cause so you just put up the cordon and head on the diversion. Maybe you’ve been in an abusive relationship or been the victim of abuse when you were younger and it has affected your relationships now. It is time to allow God to heal you through choosing to forgive the abuser (however hard that may be to do).
Maybe you have been trapped in a spirit of poverty and never been able to move on, always struggling to make ends meet. It’s time to allow God to lift that spirit off you and start believing that God wants to bless you abundantly in every area of life, including finances (Philippians 4:19, Luke 6:38, Isaiah 41:10, 2 Corinthians 9:8).
Perhaps you always seem to lurch from one illness to the next. In Luke 13, Jesus encounters a woman who had been oppressed by a spirit of infirmity. Jesus lifted that spirit off of the woman and she was made well. If you have been battling illness for a long time, or maybe you seem to just move from illness to illness, then start crying out to God for deliverance. He is the great healer and he desires that all be healed.
The world wants to tell us you are how you are and your personality cannot be altered. That is an abject lie from the devil. Jesus is mighty to save. He is mighty to heal. He is mighty to deliver. He broke the power of sin and death and there is nothing that he is not able to fix (Ephesians 3:20). Whatever the battles in your life and whatever the devil has tried to claim, Jesus can change it. When Jesus died on the cross, his disciples dispaired thinking that it was all over. But God is the God of the turnaround and just when the devil started to do a victory jig, Jesus wiped the smirk from his face and broke forth back into life. Just as Jesus conquered death, he has also conquered all the issues you are going through as well. Jesus is victorious and because of his victory you can be free today.
When we look at the Bible, we see God using some of the most unlikely people for the most extraordinary exploits who had various ‘roadworks’ and ‘diversions’ in their lives. King David was a murderer and an adulterer, yet God described him as a “man after his own heart”. King Cyrus was not a Jew nor a God fearing man, but God used him to restore Israel out of exile. Joseph was betrayed, written off and left for dead, but God had a plan to use him. Daniel was taken into Babylon under captivity, but God positioned him within the Babylonian political system in a highly influential position that resulted in the showdown in the lion’s den and the king’s heart being changed. Rahab was a prostitute, but she protected God’s spies and enabled them to escape certain death. Jonah was swallowed by a whale because he tried to avoid giving a difficult message to the people of Nineveh. However God protected him in the belly of the whale and delivered him to Nineveh directly.
There are many other examples of how God has used unlikely characters to achieve his purposes. People who, if they just put up endless cordons and spent their life taking diversions, God would not have been able to use in the way he did. In the case of Jonah, God even diverted a whale to come and swallow him up whilst he was on the way to drowning so he could be saved and spat out on the beach at Nineveh.
So, today the challenge for us all is to stop being defined by all the roadworks in our life. Stop letting the diversions we have put in place limit and frustrate us. Instead, choose to turn to Jesus and let him through the power of the Holy Spirit come into your life afresh and do the work to fix and clean you up so the need for diversions is no more, the cordons can be lifted and you can live life as God intended.
