“Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.” Psalm 37:7 NLT

Coming home one evening, we were behind a van as we approached the 4-way stop near our house. The van driver stopped, heading east. There was no one else stopped, so he could have easily started on through the intersection. A semi-truck was approaching from the south. He never even slowed down, blowing through the stop sign. For whatever reason, the van’s driver paused long enough to avoid being t-boned by the truck.

Watching all this from behind the van, I first thanked God for making the van driver hesitate enough to prevent what would have been a devastating accident. Then, I thought, would I have done the same thing?

Probably not.

I have a tendency to slow, but not stop, at the intersections of life.

• When I’m sick, I want to get better so I can get on with my list.
• When I’m hurt or upset, I want to move past it quickly so the pain goes away.
• When the rug is pulled out, I want to jump back up and steady my feet so no one sees me falter.
• When I have barely enough to get through today, I want to win the lottery, so I won’t have to worry about money ever again.

But just as fast as that semi was rumbling through the stop sign and missing the intersection, I wonder, how much of life do I miss by not stopping? How much of what God is trying to show me is missed because I want to quickly slide through that intersection?

God uses those intersections in life to change us, mold us, teach us, use us. There are people and places in each of those intersections that God intends for us to encounter. If we are too focused on getting through it, we miss much of His teaching and treasure for our lives.

We don’t know what God has planned in those times, but surely, He does. Trusting the intersections of our lives to Him could dramatically impact our lives, if we let them.

I received a text from my church with these words: “Maybe God is intending for you to arrive at an intersection the same time another person is arriving who might need exactly what you can do.”

Will you join me? Will you be like the driver of the van, pausing at the intersection instead of the semi-truck driver, who couldn’t stop long enough to avoid disaster?

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12

“You’ll never move forward if you keep looking back.” The words pressed on my heart in such a way that I knew it had to be the Holy Spirit revealing a truth to me. 

On a warm fall day, I was part of a team helping a realtor friend deliver pumpkins to the neighborhood she covers. Her marketing technique has been very successful and extremely well-received. A team of us drove around in a rented truck, with some walking door-to-door delivering pumpkins to doorsteps, and some applying stickers and moving the 500-plus pumpkins to the edge of the truck. It was quite a system. 

I was inside the truck, applying stickers and moving pumpkins – and looking at the neighborhood as we passed houses and streets. A neighborhood that is very familiar – when I am looking forward. We jokingly noted that we couldn’t really tell where we were going because we could only see where we had been, looking out the back of the truck. 

That’s when it hit me. That while looking back on life and trying to work through things is fine if it’s needed, perhaps there is unconfessed sin, or forgiveness that needs to happen or some other thing that needs to be dealt with. But dwelling on the past and reliving old hurts – for nothing other than the sake of rehashing them is absolutely not fine. In fact, it’s really against what the Bible teaches us to do. 

When we confess our sins and truly repent, they are cast off – forgiven, forgotten and never to be thought of again. Psalm 103:12 says he has removed our transgressions as far as the east is from the west. East and west can never meet – never. That means our sins are gone. Stop dwelling on them and move forward.

I don’t know if you needed to hear this, but I obviously did! Are you looking in front of you or are you stuck looking out the back of the truck?