Have you ever wanted something so bad for another person you agonized over it?  This weekend, I’ve had my sweet friend heavy on my heart.  I know she left the restoration center, but I don’t know where she is.  She’s made decisions that don’t make sense to me.  She was in a safe place where she could find healing and wholeness and she traded it for what?  She’s out there somewhere without the resources to get what she said she wants, a new life of physical, emotional and spiritual health.  Why did she leave?  Because it got hard?  Because it was costing her something?
As I was praying for her this morning, thinking about this very thing, I couldn’t help but think, we do the same thing.  Oh, it’s easy to see in another’s life, but we overlook it in our own lives.  God has a plan for our lives [Jeremiah 29:11].  It isn’t just a plan, but it’s a great plan, a God plan.  When we don’t see the full picture or when it doesn’t make sense to us, we run, just like Jonah ran [Jonah 1:1-3].  
Most of us are familiar with Jonah’s story.  Running didn’t work out too well for him.  It landed him in the stomach of a whale…not a place you’d want to vacation.  This isn’t just a sweet little Bible story; it really happened.  Can you imagine being in the dark, slimy stomach of a whale?  Think of the smells, the sounds, and the texture of where you’d be sitting.  That assumes there’s enough room in there to sit instead of being pressed into an uncomfortable position. 
The thing is the Lord will allow us to run but so far before He steps in and makes us miserable.  He allows us to be in dark places that smell and feel uncomfortable to us. He does so because He loves us.  He knows what’s best for us.  He can see the whole picture and He knows how the story ends [Revelation 22:13].  He knows how our story ends.  If He knows the beginning and the end, can’t we trust Him with the middle?  He’s for us [Romans 8:31]. 
What are you battling today?  Are you trusting in your knowledge and understanding more than the Lord’s?  Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”  If He has the road map to our destination, doesn’t it make sense to go His way?