The Long Way Round

When Pharaoh finally lets the people go, the shortest route to Canaan runs along the Mediterranean coast through Philistine territory. Exodus 13:17 says God did not lead them that way, even though it was shorter, because if they faced war they might change their minds and go back to Egypt. So God led them around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The people went out armed for battle, Moses carried the bones of Joseph as Joseph had made the Israelites swear, and the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, so that they could travel at any hour. The pillar never left its place in front of the people.

The one idea from this passage is that the long way is sometimes God's kindness, not his absence. Israel was not ready for the coast road. They had been slaves for generations; they had no experience of war, no confidence in God's protection, and a strong inclination, which the next chapter confirms, to retreat at the first sign of trouble. God knew this about them better than they did. So he took them on a route that looked like a detour and was actually a curriculum. In the desert they would learn that he goes ahead, that he provides, and that he fights.

Almost everyone has a coast road they wish they had been allowed to take. The quicker career path. The relationship that should have worked out sooner. The healing that was supposed to come this year. When God leads by the desert road, it is natural to conclude that he has lost track of us or does not care about our time. The text says the opposite. He led them the long way precisely because he cared what would happen to them on the short one.

Notice, too, the pillar. God did not send them into the desert with a map. He went in front of them, visibly, day and night, and the sign of his presence never moved from its place ahead of the people. The detour came with company.

The turn toward life is to reconsider the detour you are on. Not to pretend it is pleasant, but to ask what God might be teaching you there that you could not have learned on the faster road. And to look for the pillar, the evidence, however ordinary, that he is still ahead of you. The bones of Joseph went with them as a reminder that God keeps promises across centuries. Your desert is not outside that promise. It is on the way to it.