4145 Just Because Life Takes An Unexpected Turn

Life doesn't always unfold the way we planned. One day the road looks clear, and the next, it curves somewhere we never saw coming. Unexpected turns can leave us feeling disappointed, confused, or uncertain about what is happening in our world and what God is doing in the middle of it. But here is what remains true even when everything else feels shaky: God is never surprised by the path ahead. Just because life takes an unexpected turn, God was not caught off guard, and He is not scrambling to figure out what to do next.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord in Jeremiah 29:11, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

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Even when your life takes an unexpected turn, you can trust God with every chapter of your story — the ones you would have written yourself, and the ones you never saw coming.

The question is what you do while you're standing in the middle of that turn, before the next chapter reveals itself. And answering that question honestly means peeling back a few layers — because what's on the surface is rarely what's really going on underneath.

The busy hiding place

The first layer is the easiest to spot in other people and the hardest to admit in ourselves. Chaos and busyness can be traps we set up for ourselves to escape what really needs to be attended to. It's easier to fill a calendar than to face a wound. It's easier to stay in motion than to sit still with a question you're afraid to ask God — or yourself.

Just because life takes an unexpected turn doesn't mean you give up and run and hide behind a full schedule and a racing mind. Running from stillness doesn't make the unresolved thing disappear. It just buries it a little deeper, where it will keep pulling at you until you finally turn around and face it.

Peeling back this layer starts with a simple, uncomfortable question: what am I staying busy to avoid feeling?

Self-control, where nothing is guaranteed

Underneath the busyness is usually a scramble for control. Uncertainty makes us feel like we've lost the wheel entirely, and when we feel like we've lost the wheel, self-control is often the first thing to go. We reach for whatever gives us the illusion of control back — overworking, overeating, scrolling, snapping at the people closest to us, or shutting down altogether.

Galatians 5:22-23 lists self-control among the fruit of the Spirit, right alongside love, joy, and peace — which tells us something important: self-control isn't a personality trait some people have, and others don't. It's a fruit. It grows. And it grows specifically in the soil of uncertain seasons, if we let it.

The K.I.S.S. ~ Grow in uncertain soil!

So what does that growth actually look like when nothing is guaranteed?

1. Name what's happening instead of numbing it.

Self-control doesn't start with gritting your teeth — it starts with honesty.

Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God."

Stillness isn't passive; it's an act of courage. It means sitting with the disappointment or fear long enough to actually look at it, instead of drowning it out with noise. You can't have self-control over something you refuse to acknowledge.

2. Anchor your trust in God's character, not in the outcome you wanted.

Proverbs 3:5-6 instructs us to "trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

Your understanding is limited to what you can see from here. His isn't. Self-control gets a lot steadier when it's tied to who God is rather than to how you wish the situation had gone.

2 Timothy 1:7 reminds us, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." A sound mind — self-control — is something God actively supplies, not something you have to manufacture out of willpower alone.

3. Take the next faithful step instead of demanding the whole map.

"You don't need to see the entire road to walk it well." ~ Kristianne Wargo

Self-control in uncertainty often just looks like doing the next right thing — showing up, praying, following through on today's responsibilities — without insisting on clarity for next month before you'll move at all.

But what's actually hidden underneath it all?

Keep peeling the layers, because self-control alone isn't the bottom layer either. This is where we go deeper and address what is hidden within — the real thing the busyness and the loss of control were pointing to all along.

You can't move forward when you don't address what is holding you back.

• Maybe it's unforgiveness.
• Maybe it's fear disguised as productivity.
• Maybe it's grief you never let finish its work.

Whatever it is, God is not asking you to perform your way past it — He's inviting you to bring it into the light, where healing actually happens.

The Core: Becoming who God called you to be

At the very center of all this peeling is the real invitation of the unexpected turn. It was never really about managing the chaos or gritting through the uncertainty. It's about becoming.

Galatians 5:22-23 doesn't stop at self-control — it names love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness too. That whole list is the fruit of one Spirit, growing in one life, and it doesn't grow in the seasons that go according to plan nearly as much as it grows in the seasons that don't.

An unexpected turn is often the exact soil God uses to grow in you what a comfortable, predictable life never could.

This is the layer under the layer under the layer: you are not just trying to survive the turn. You are being formed by it. God is not surprised by your detour — He's using it to shape you into who He has called you to be.

An unexpected turn in your story isn't a sign that God has lost His grip on the plan. It's an invitation to slow down, tell the truth about what you're facing, and trust Him one step at a time.

One step at a time leads to miles of greatness — even on the road you never planned to walk.

"Be present. Be incredible. Be YOU!!!"

 

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Cover Art by Jenny Hamson

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Music by Mandisa - Overcomer

http://www.mandisaofficial.com

Song ID: 68209
Song Title: Overcomer
Writer(s): Ben Glover, Chris Stevens, David Garcia
Copyright © 2013 Meaux Mercy (BMI) Moody Producer Music (BMI)
One Songs (ASCAP) Ariose Music (ASCAP) Universal Music - 
Brentwood Benson Publ. (ASCAP) D Soul Music (ASCAP) (adm. at CapitolCMGPublishing.com) All rights reserved. Used by permission.