Have you ever played a video game with a big open world, and there was a marker on the map you were dying to reach? You made a beeline for it, and then a giant mountain got in the way. Or an ocean you couldn’t cross. Suddenly you couldn’t go in a straight line. You had to take a detour, way out of the way, over hills and across paths, to finally get there.

Jonah was given a marker on his map too. God said, “Go east to Nineveh.” But instead of making a beeline for it, Jonah went the complete opposite direction, toward a place called Tarshish. It was about as far from that marker as he could get on any map he knew of.

Here’s the thing about God’s markers: they don’t move. Jonah took a lot of steps in the wrong direction, and Nineveh was still sitting right where God had put it. Every step Jonah took to avoid God’s plan somehow led him straight back into it. That’s actually really comforting. A whole storm and a giant fish later, God’s purpose was still exactly on track. Human beings can’t mess up what God has decided to do.

Sometimes a detour is a mountain that shows up out of nowhere. Sometimes, like Jonah, it’s a road we picked ourselves. Either way, the marker stays put. So what about your plans? Maybe you didn’t get the teacher you wanted. Maybe your family moved. Maybe the thing you were counting on all summer fell apart. Detours are frustrating! But God is not lost, and He is not surprised. He can see the whole map. He knows exactly where He’s taking you, and the detour is part of the journey.

Take Action: Think of one plan of yours that got changed this year. Write it down on a piece of paper, and underneath it write, “God, I don’t know why yet, but You do. Please lead me.” Stick it somewhere you’ll see it, like a drawer, a mirror, or the inside of a notebook. Come back and look at it in a few months and see what God has done.