Copyright 2014 by Bob Rogers

I’m glad that I met some angry dogs on a country road.

This summer, I was going for a walk on a country road where my in-laws live. I have walked that road for years. I know that many of the homes have dogs, so sometimes I carry a stick for protection. That particular day, I brought my pepper spray. Unfortunately, a woman near the end of the road let her dogs chase me. I had to use the pepper spray to keep the dogs away from me. The woman and I exchanged a few words. I’m not really proud of the argument we had.

This fall, I was visiting my in-laws again, and I decided to go for a walk again with a stick and my pepper spray. I don’t enjoy conflict, and even though I thought the “crazy woman with the dogs” was wrong, I had no desire to have another confrontation. Right before I reached her home, there is another road that turns left, so I turned left down that road. I’m so glad that I did. The side road was so beautiful and peaceful that I put away the spray and got out my cell phone to take a picture. At the top of this page is the photograph I took that day. Click on it and you can see how beautiful the view was. It reminded me of the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, which ends with these words:

Through this experience, God showed me a spiritual truth. Sometimes we have trouble in life, and we don’t understand why it comes. It may cause us to go down a different path, a path we did not expect. But often God works through these circumstances to bring about something beautiful and new. We just need to look for it.

We need to listen to the Holy Spirit when He puts up a road block on a path, and be open to going down a new path. Isaiah 30:21 says, “Whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you; ‘This is the way. Walk in it.'” When we face trouble, we need to trust in a loving God who desires to bring good results out of the bad circumstances, if we will be faithful. As Romans 8:28 says, “God causes all things to work together for good to those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”

I regret that I had the conflict that sent me down a different road. I’m even embarrassed that I let myself get into a senseless argument with a woman over her dogs. But, like Robert Frost, I’m glad that the conflict I had on that road opened up a new road I would otherwise have never seen. How about you?