I thought I was going to Phoenix.
That was the plan.
Simple enough: get on a plane, make a connection, arrive in Phoenix, check into the hotel, and get ready for my conference.
Instead, between delays, mechanical problems, an issue affecting American Airlines, missed connections, and planes that simply weren’t working, we ended up taking a long and very strange road from Fort Lauderdale to Dallas, Lubbock, Houston, and finally Phoenix.
Looking at the bright side, we were in five different places in less than 24 hours. We started with lunch in Fort Lauderdale, dinner in Dallas, breakfast in Lubbock, lunch in Houston, and finally dinner in Phoenix. We also crossed three time zones—Eastern, Central, and Pacific—and somewhere along the way, I honestly stopped knowing what time it was or what time zone I was even in.
Eventually, after all the delays, changing airplanes, and waiting, we arrived in Phoenix around 6:30.
Exhausted? Absolutely. Frustrated? A little. But angry? Not really.
At some point, we started looking at the ridiculousness of it all and laughing. I mean, how many people can say they crossed Texas just to get to Arizona?
It wasn’t the trip we planned.
But it became our trip anyway—and eventually, it became the icebreaker for so many conversations.
And somewhere between the mechanical problems and the missed connections, I started thinking about how much this resembles life.
We make a plan. We figure out the most logical route. We choose the shortest way, the fastest way, the way that makes the most sense to us. And then suddenly, something we didn’t see coming changes the course: a detour, a delay, a missed connection, a door that closes while another one opens.
Our first instinct is often to think something has gone wrong. But a detour isn’t necessarily a mistake, and we don’t always need to understand why we’re being redirected.
I’ve been thinking a lot about control lately, about how badly we want to know what’s coming next. We want the house, the career, the answer, the opportunity, the outcome. We want to believe that if we do everything right, everything will work out exactly the way we imagined.
But faith doesn’t always work that way.
Trusting God isn’t believing that everything will happen according to our plan. It’s believing that even when it doesn’t, we are still being carried somewhere.
And this is where I think I’ve misunderstood what it means to be still.
Being still doesn’t mean sitting back and waiting for life to happen to us. It doesn’t mean doing nothing and saying, “Whatever happens, happens.” Sometimes being still means stepping away from the noise long enough to reconnect with the Divine, quiet the fear, stop trying to control every outcome, and listen.
Because when we’re constantly moving, fixing, planning, and trying to force the next step, we don’t always leave enough space to see clearly.
Sometimes a detour gives us that space. A delay forces us to pause. A closed door makes us look in another direction. A change in plans can create the stillness we didn’t know we needed.
And in that stillness, we may see what we couldn’t see while we were busy trying to make everything happen our way.
But after the stillness comes movement. We still have to make the phone call, take the opportunity, fill out the application, take the next plane, try again, and do our part.
The difference is that we’re no longer moving just because we’re afraid of standing still. We’re moving with clarity. We’re moving with trust. We’re moving while knowing that we don’t have to control every step along the way.
And then comes what, for me, is the hardest part:
Letting go of what isn’t mine to control.
Sometimes I look at something I want and think, I wish I had that. A house. A different life. Something I haven’t even figured out how to name yet.
And then I realize something uncomfortable. I may want what’s next, but I can’t get there while I’m still holding to what’s familiar. I can ask God to open a new door, but how can I expect Him to open it when I’m holding so tightly on and afraid to let go of the door I’m standing behind?
Letting go isn’t giving up. It’s not becoming passive or walking away from what I can do. It’s doing my part while trusting God with what I cannot control.
The flight to Phoenix wasn’t a straight line, and neither is life. The route can change, the timing can change, and the destination can even look different from what we originally imagined.
We can keep moving, but we can also pause, listen, reconnect, and trust.
We can believe that we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be, even when we don’t understand how we got there.
Maybe Wave 61 is about realizing that the route matters, too—not just the destination.
Sometimes the delays, detours, and unexpected turns aren’t taking us away from where we’re supposed to be. Sometimes they’re giving us the space to stop, reconnect, see clearly, and continue in a direction we couldn’t see before.
—TodayWaves 🌊
What if the road you’re resisting is part of the journey you’re meant to take? Instead of asking, “Why did this happen?” what if you asked, “Where is this taking me?”
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