Sometimes you miss the little things in life until someone points them out for you.

One summer when a friend from Haiti came to visit, several families made plans to show him different sites, have him try different foods, and let him meet lots of different people. After the visit, when we asked him what stuck out the most about all of these experiences, he told us, “Your roads … they are so smooth.”

This maybe wasn’t the impact level we were going for, but smooth roads are no small difference between here and Haiti. I think when you have experienced the roads of Haiti your whole life and then you take a plane and step off into another world, the fact that this new world has black, nearly polished roads in comparison may just say something in that moment about the whole country.

We like things smooth around here, that’s for sure. When was the last time you didn’t complain about road construction or traffic on a road trip? We aren’t so different from everyone else though, with our smooth roads and first-world problems in America. I think it’s human nature to want smooth. When you grow up with bumpy and pot-holed and well-worn roads, you want smoother ones. When you grow up with concrete, smooth roads, and sixty-five-miles-an-hour, you want smoother, unencumbered, and faster.

When we are introduced to the Apostle Paul in the Book of Acts, we meet a man who liked smooth roads, a man who thought if the road wasn’t smooth enough, he would just pave it himself, no matter who was in the way.

Acts 9:1-3

I cannot tell you how much I relate to this guy known as Saul, in this particular place in his life. Sometimes I’d like to storm through people and ideas and plans and lay them all flat, so I can easily walk through with my own. The Greek in Acts 9:3 is translated in so many different ways in each of the Bibles we open. Actually, this is one of the most diverse phrases I’ve read across translations.

ESV - “As he went on his way…”

KJV - “as he journeyed…”

NASB – “as he was traveling…”

None of these are inaccurate, but in this instance, I think the ESV translator catches a nuance for us that the other translations don’t. Paul wasn’t simply traveling or journeying, and in many instances, when we are honest, neither are we. We are trying to lay a road, to make a way. As Paul storms forward to pave his way, to lay down the road he wants to lay down, to make happen the life and roads he wants to make happen … The Way, The Truth, and The Life stops him with a heaven-sent speedbump.

Here’s the lesson:

God’s speedbumps are better than smooth pavement any day.

When have you had a God-Bump in your life? When has God dropped you to your knees or thrown up a “Road Closed” sign as you traveled at breakneck speeds toward the destination you thought for sure was perfect? Sometimes God works new plans and paths in our life slowly, gently, over time, and sometimes He says,

“Heidi, Heidi … No.”

Here’s the beauty of God’s “No,” my friends:

The way speedbumps are designed, you can go over them. In Christ, we get to keep going. Our destination may change, we might turn around, we might take a detour, but going, traveling, journeying are all part of His plan. We are not so thwarted by God’s “No,” that we are left face down, asphalt in our mouths, crowd around us laughing.

When God interrupts Paul’s plans in Acts 9, God does not leave him on the road. He leads Paul, with two powerful words. Find them for yourself, or keep reading…

Acts 9:4-9

“But rise…”

God’s speedbumps aren’t there to make us curse the engineer who laid such a ridiculous barrier in our path, but they remind us where we have been, where we have come from, to give us strength for the Way forward.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience … But God … made us alive together with Christ …”

Ephesians 2:1-5, select portions

Who wants a smooth road, when we can have His road? We’d be fooling ourselves to think there are smooth roads out there anyway. When God throws a speedbump into our lives, He always picks us up off the pavement and picks our heart up along with our hope and our zeal. He dusts us off and turns us the right direction, sometimes slows us down, and gives us directions for the next couple steps forward.

The Risen Road, that is what we walk.

Let us go on our way … His Way.

Up Next - Jesus is My Favorite

In the Meantime - Map the roads God has met you on… see how Katie did it here:

Visual Faith Road Map