Do you know where you are?

As I was driving along the freeway this past Friday night heading home from work I found myself completely lost. At this time in my life I have a 30-45 minute commute depending on traffic, weather, time of year etc. The week had been an extremely busy one and filled with confusion, doubts and moments of sheer surrender to whatever God is doing in my life. As I hit the road to immerse myself in the traffic flow of Houston I found myself lost in thought and not until I saw the blaring lights of the tollroad did I realize that I had been driving for 45 minutes and had no idea where I was. I must say that it was a feeling of dismay, how could I have possibly been driving for this long and have no idea how I get to where I am. I felt as if I were in the twilight zone, activity was all around me and I was frozen. I decided that I would just ask someone in a neighboring toll line where we were. It took a while for me to muster up the courage because I have no doubt that the look on my face was of someone who had been commited and escaped for the first time after years of being institutionalized I rolled down the passenger window and asked a rather rough looking man in an old pick-up truck "I know this is going to sound strange but where are we?" He just looked straight ahead and tried to ignore me but as I'm sure any of you who know me knows that does not work and so I repeated the question "Sir, where are we?" and he looked at me with a glare that would have sent you running to your mother and said "Houston" and he looked again straight ahead. After recovering from what was a very rude encounter I realized that this man either thinks that I'm crazy, I'm trying to pick him up or that I'm about to car jack him and he has no intention of helping me so I just drove on ahead. I saw the toll booth worker standing out at the coin deposit and so I patiently waited my turn. As I waited I looked all around me trying to ascertain where I could possible be in this huge city. Thoughts of unsafe areas and strangers troubled me as I sat baffled in traffic. I'm afraid to say that more often that not I will get lost in thought driving to a routine location and have no memory of the drive. Finally, it was my turn to pay the toll and I asked the man in the orange work vest "where am I" and yet again I got a strange look. Finally, I had to take longer than I would have liked explaining to him my situation and then he laughed and told me that I-10 was just straight ahead a few miles. Now I have lived in Houston my entire life and I know just about every back street to every joint around and I have been down this stretch of toll-road hundreds of times and yet it was completely unfamiliar to me at this moment in time. Is my walk with Christ routine? I'm reminded of the blessings of the valley of life as I finish this blog entry tonight. I don't know about you but many times I'm in such a hurry to move out of the valley, to learn the necessary lessons and get on with the good times that I miss God's glorious presence in the mundane.