It happened to me again this morning as I drove into work. We have been doing some pretty extensive and long delayed building maintenance here at Central. Sometimes we have needed to shut down the driveway into our parking lot so that a crane can operate there to lift workers who are repairing windows and masonry, but sometimes, the driveway is open. This morning, the crane was there and the driveway was closed, and so I had to go around the block and come into our parking lot through what is usually the exit. It was no big deal, but it got me thinking about how life is filled with road blocks, many of them unexpected and surprising. How do you deal with the road blocks you face?

I suppose, as I think about this, I deal with them in different ways. Sometimes, like this morning, while I end up at the same destination, I change my route, but that is not always how I handle road blocks. Sometimes, I sit there, fuming, unable and/or unwilling to change course. I know that it feels healthier when I do not fume. It feels healthier to take another route, but sometimes that’s not what I do because maybe there is not another route, though I suspect that is rare. More likely, the issue is that I do not know another route, or I have failed to heed the warning signs of a road block ahead and have gone too far and gotten trapped.

I want get better at the practice of redirection, working my way around the road blocks, but more than that, I want to get better, when I find myself stuck, unable to move, to find a way to avoid fuming. Could I reframe the perceived frustration into an opportunity to listen to some music, to think or to pray, to breathe.

–Pastor Don Steele