A few days ago I went with a friend to a motorcycle show. He drove, and we parked in the parking garage next to the convention center. We were talking as we walked to the convention hall and I stopped and said, “Hey, did you note where you parked, because I didn’t pay any attention at all?” He smiled and said, “We’re good–I have a great sense of direction.” We went to the convention, met some other friends, and enjoyed walking around and seeing all the new machines, old machines and paraphernalia that motorcyclists love looking at. After a few hours, we decided it was time to get something to eat, so we went to the parking garage to his car. He went straight to the stall where he remembered parking the car.
Except the car wasn’t there.
He said, “I can see me parking it, and it was right there”. Of course, I couldn’t deny it—I had already admitted I wasn’t paying attention. But, to be sure, we walked all around the parking structure. We covered that level, then went to the level below. The car wasn’t there. Finally, we looked above. The next level up was in open air, and we both remembered parking under a roof, so we ruled it out. Just before my friend found a police officer to report the theft, we decided to go up to the open air level anyway—just to be sure. The car wasn’t there, but then we saw that the back half of the level was under a roof. We went to that section, and there, in the same relative position he remembered, was the car.
How often do we think we know exactly where we’re going, and how to get there? And how often do we actually end up there? When our experiences—or lives—end up different than we expect, do we wonder why God would allow this, or just recognize that we only thought we knew where we were going?