Looking for Signs

How often in life do you miss the path you intended to follow because you were looking/waiting for a sign that wasn't there?

As a last hoorah of the summer, my family took a little day trip to a hiking trail nearby that leads to a Hot Springs at the top of a mountain. It's a beautiful, peaceful place where you can wade in the clear warm water and let little fish eat all of the grime and dead skin off your feet, which is a strange, but amazing sensation.

It's about a two mile hike up to the springs, so not too bad, though it does have quite an incline, and the views are gorgeous, whether you are looking out at the landscape or meandering through the groves of trees. It's fantastic.

We have been to these specific Hot Springs several times before, hiked this trail several times before, and I would say that we are pretty familiar with the path. We had our water, our snacks, our water shoes and Hiking Boots. We were ready, but we missed it.

We started the hike pumped, on a mission, talking about the fish that we going to eat our toes, but before long we were suddenly very confused. There was a fork in the path, and it looked familiar, I was pretty sure we were supposed to go left, follow the trail up the mountain, but there was no sign. There had always been a sign before, pointing the way and letting us know how far we had to go. On this day there was no sign at this particular fork in the path. I looked, but couldn't find any evidence of a sign ever having been there either. My wife ran up the trail a bit to the left and returned still unsure if that was the correct direction to go. My kids and I explored a little to the right, and again we were a bit unsure. Both directions seemed a bit familiar, but also a bit unfamiliar. While, in my heart, I was fairly certain that we needed to make a left, there was no sign, and that planted a seed a doubt in me. What if the real turn was just a few minutes further up the path and we missed it because I took us down a wrong path. What if the sign was just around the bend, waiting for us to follow it. 

We went right, and kept looking for the sign.

We never found it.

We never made it to the Hot Springs that day. By the time we realized that that initial fork, the one that my gut told me was the right turn to make, was indeed the path that we should have followed, we had already hiked quite a ways down the other trail. It was lunchtime and a storm was rolling in, so we returned to the picnic grounds to eat and then head home.

There are two things that I learned from this experience.

1. Trust your Gut
• We often get so hung up on making sure that we have everything lined up perfectly, situated and planned for, that when something is missing, or falls out of place, we no longer know what to do. We can get so dead-set on following the signs, whether from God, family, friends, etc... that in lieu of a glaring, obvious sign telling us to change direction we just keep trekking along despite the fact that we often know we should turn. I knew that we needed to make a left turn to reach the Hot Springs. We'd done it multiple times before, but without a big sign pointing the way I let doubt dictate my decision instead of trusting what I knew was right. 
  
  Don't let doubt dictate your decisions in life. Know where you are going, how to get there, what you need, and follow through. If you reach forks in your life follow the path that takes you to the destination God has appointed for you, and be familiar enough with that destination that you follow the right path.
  
  
2.   Enjoy the Hike
• After missing the turn to get to the Hot Springs, we could have been frustrated and angry. The thing that we planned to do was ruined. However, taking a right at the fork meant that we embarked on a trail we had never been on before. It was new. It was different. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. We didn't get to let fish eat at our feet as we waded in a warm pool, but we did get to dip our hands in a cool creek and watch as the water flowed past, around and over rocks and trees and plants. We wanted to enjoy nature and have some fun and peace before the craziness of school and life kicked off, and we got just that, just in a different place than we thought.
  
  Sometimes the destination that God intends for you may not be what you think it is. Maybe we were supposed to go to the Hot Springs, but I messed up, and God rerouted for us. Maybe we were just supposed to experience some relaxing time as a family, and either direction would have us reach our destination. In life we are going to make mistakes, but we should enjoy the journey. If we are in tune with God and who and what he wants us to be, we won't get hung up on the little things in life, we will follow Him without doubt, and when we go a direction that maybe wasn't the first choice, we can trust Him to reroute us and get us where we need to be, we need to be willing to find joy in the journey and trust Him to bring us to the destination. 

So, get out there and take a hike, both literally and figuratively. Enjoy life. Trust your instincts. Don't let doubt dictate your decisions.