Not-So-Pointless Construction Cones

Ever since I started making the trek from Fargo to Sioux Falls on I-29 back in 2008, there has been construction on at least one section of that barren interstate. It never fails. But, I comforted myself this past weekend, at least I can tell that work is being done. That something is being accomplished. Sometimes, on I-94 from Beulah to Fargo, there are construction cones pushing the two-lane interstate down into one lane. For no reason. There are no work trucks or crews. No big holes in the road. No work being done. And to be honest, those mere mile-long stretches bother me more than the twenty-mile stretches where it's obvious work is being done.

A lot of times, I wonder the same thing spiritually as well. Because I can't always see what God is doing, why He allows certain things to happen, what work He is doing in my heart.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Why, for example, would Jordan and I feel so strongly led to international adoption, only to have us find out we were expecting our own child? And then, when opportunity came around for us to apply for adoption, why were there so many red flags and we felt led away from international adoption? Or why would I sense the Lord so strongly telling me to be involved in a certain ministry, and then mere months later feel lead out of it?

Sometimes, it just doesn't make sense, does it?

I've been pondering these things for months. Almost a year, actually. And then, this last weekend, as I lay in my old bed at my parents house in Sioux Falls, I thought of Abraham. How he not only felt strongly about wanting a child, but he was promised a child by the Lord. And when that child came, what did the Lord require of him? To sacrifice his son.

"Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him . . . 'Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.' So Abraham arose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. Then they came to the place . . . and Abraham build the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven . . . 'Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.'" - Genesis 22:1-3; 9-12, NASB (emphasis mine)

Just as the Lord was testing Abraham and his trust in His God, perhaps the Lord is testing me. Trying to see where my heart lies with Him. To see if I truly trust Him to provide. To see if I am willing to serve. To see if I am faithful to Him even when I feel like what He wants doesn't make sense.

I honestly don't know what will happen with adoption in our lives. Or how my involvement in ministry will look next year at this time. But I guess I'd better be faithful now. Willing. Trusting. Serving.

Because I don't know what He has in store. Maybe His construction cones make sense in the grand scheme of things after all.