ROADBLOCKS

This Christmas season, I find mmyself thanking God for the “roadblocks” in life. The definition of "Roadblock": 1. A barricade often with traps or mines for holding up an enemy at a point on a road covered by fire,2. A road barricade set up especially by law enforcement officers, 3. an obstruction in a road, 4. something that blocks progress or prevents accomplishment of an objective.

 As I read prophecy and fulfillment of prophecy, God used Roadblocks to fulfill His plans. He used things that would seem to prevent the accomplishment of his objective, that could only be seen as His Sovereign guidance when we look back.  He used the ungodly, He used circumstances that seemed that He was absent and not present.  All things worked together for good. Rom 8:28  states that And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For example when scripture said that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, a census was ordered.  When scripture stated, out of Egypt, Joseph had to flee to Egypt for protection of the Son of God.  

I find myself thinking about the Roadblocks in my life and realize while I fuss and balk that they exist, the same God who before the foundation of time had a plan to save mankind and saw that plan laid out and become a reality with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, is the same God who before the foundation of time laid out a plan for my life. The Psalmist tells us that even before we were formed, God wrote our days.  Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.  I find myself thinking that if roadblocks did not exist, I would sit in my comfort zone and be content.  I would not seek, I would not grow, I would not be shaped or molded into the image God intended for me to be molded into.

This Christmas season, and all the seasons of life we walk through, let us not be so quick to get discouraged when the roadblocks, those obstructions that crop up, or those things that seem to prevent, seem larger than we can scale, but rather pray that God would help us to see His hand in the obstacles. Let us pray for wisdom and for the Holy Spirit to help us to discern when to fight because it is the enemy trying to detour us or  when the roadblock is placed to change us into Christ's image. Let us be alert to the possibility that God is trying to perform a work through us and may we have enough wisdom and discernment in those moments to surrender to His working hand.  May we learn to embrace those roadblocks as part of God's plan for our lives.