When God sends you in an unexpected direction

What happens in life is not always orderly or predictable. Here are some ideas for finding peace in the midst of confusion.

Unexpected twists
I walked along the sidewalk that runs along the west side of Central Park this morning marveling at its geometry: hexagonal stones under my feet were delimited by parquet-like bricks, with an orderly stone wall that ran alongside. Just beyond the wall lay the park itself, where delicate branches of bare trees intertwined in the blue sky and an irregular din of house sparrows emerged from badger tentacles.

The contrast between the straight, orderly sidewalk created by man and the intricate and whirling exuberance of nature just beyond its border led me to think about the differences between the creation of God and that of man.

The world contains countless examples of circles made by God: the moon, the navels, the grapes, the drops of water and the center of the flowers. Triangles are also easily evident. There are kitten cat noses and ears, conifers, mountain peaks, agave leaves and river deltas.

But what about that most common shape in the man-made world, the rectangle? I searched my brain for natural counterparts, and although I thought and thought I had only two: teeth and salt crystals. This surprised me. Do we prefer rectangles simply because it is easier to plan and build with blocks and straight lines? Or does it have anything to do with how humans tend to assume that life should be linear? I do not know.

There is a saying that God writes directly with crooked lines. As I look at the beauty of a tree in winter, with its branches, twigs and twigs reaching the sky in an apparently confused but obviously planned pattern, I can grasp something of what it means.

God's plan isn't always orderly and predictable the way I want it to be. There are twists and turns in my life that I can't foresee or predict. This does not mean that branching in unexpected directions is wrong or wrong. All it means is that in every new place I am in, I need to keep growing, getting to the top, living for and with the Lord.