Detours on Purpose?!?

"Accept that your life is not your own. It's His."

So many times in my life, way to many to count, I have tried to live it my way because I thought that I could. I should have known that I my life was not my own, never was.

Today's devotion was discussing this very topic. We are not our own, God is in control. There may be lots of unexpected detours in our life, but instead of asking "Why?" we need to start asking "What can I learn from this?" or "What are you teaching me, Lord?".

Currently, I don' think I'm experiencing a detour in my life. However, this is not the case for the rest of my life. I've experienced plenty of them:

• Death in the family
• Unexpected death of a friend
• Financial hardship
• Illness 

All of these things are detours in life that I probably asked myself "Why me?" when I should have been asking God what I could learn from the detour. When taking a tour of something, whether it be a museum or am entire city, we don't sit there and ask the tour guide "Why did you go this way?" or "Why didn't you take us down that road?" we just follow and believe that they know what is best. They can see the whole picture and the best case scenario.  So if this is the case, why do we ask God and complain all the time? I'm not too sure!?! I'm struggling with this as well...

I guess that's something to ponder for a bit. Maybe a great way to "go back in time" is to look at the old detours in life and see what you learned or where God's hand was in them. Do they make better sense now? Mine do! I can see clearly why the detour took place.

"If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus."
            Donald Miller