Today I took a moment to pause... Well, I took several as I reflected on some good moments from the years when I was still at home with my parents. We were living in Alaska at the time and it started a "historic family phrase" that my dad would often use as we traveled from place to place. Every thing was so beautiful, but some of the road maps were not always that detailed. We would head out on what should have been a trip of a half an hour, then find ourselves still on the road after an hour. We would do the typical, "Are we there yet?" Often times our time delay happened because my dad had decided to take what he perceived was "a shortcut"... Often those shortcuts were actually "longcuts" instead. Yet those adventures often took us on very beautiful roads, in very beautiful country. We would discover all kinds of animals along the way and eventually we would arrive at our destination. None of the time spent was wasted, as we chatted, laughed, sometimes whined a bit, but always created 'memories' along the way.
When we moved back to the "lower 48" (at the time) we still took time to travel together as a family. We still took many of dad's "shortcuts" and made many more memories together.
Today my dad stopped by the office where I work. He was trying to send a text to a friend on his "non-smart" phone. I wiped mine out and used SIRI to help me get a quick text to his phone before he could get his sent. He complained as my text buzzed his phone in the middle of his message. Another friend told my dad about many of "smart" phones features including built in GPS. My dad said he didn't need it and I had to tease him that maybe he needed SIRI so he wouldn't need any "shortcuts" any more. He laughed and went on his way.
As I closed up the office, my mind was reminiscing on many of our past "shortcuts". I jumped in my car thanking the Lord that SIRI did not exist when I was young. I thought of all our "shortcut" trips that would not have happened if SIRI's GPS got us there. Then I reflected on how grateful I am that when I try to take "shortcuts" in my walk with Jesus, that He would knows how to turn those "longcuts" in to beautiful memories even if the road takes me longer.
