There probably isn’t a better symbol for hopelessness than that of a dead-end sign. I have been walking around our neighborhood a lot lately. At first, I stayed close to the house but the more I walked, the longer I wanted my route to be. At some point, I began walking across the street in a nearby, quiet neighborhood and eventually found the back entrance to the school that’s right up the road from us. But, one thing I quickly saw was that there are a lot of dead-ends over this way.
Usually, there’s a good reason for dead-end signs. It might be because of a cliff that rests just on the other side, and if you choose not to stop, you may fall and get hurt, or worse! Or, a dead-end could mean that it’s just not meant for anyone to travel on—like maybe it’s someone’s property line, and they don’t want anyone on their property.
Regardless of the reason, a dead-end communicates very simply that the road ends and the traveling ceases.
You have two options when you come to a dead-end.
- Turn around. (I know this isn’t very profound, but, hang with me for a minute.) Or, and this is a big one:
- Ignore the sign and continue on to figure out why there’s a dead-end sign.
Now, I have stated before that I’m pretty big into personality tests because they really help you understand who you are and who you want to become. If you missed it, you can read more about it here.
Now, with that said, I’m a rule-follower, not a rule-breaker. If there’s a sign that tells me I should turn around because there’s a dead-end ahead of me, that is likely what I’m going to do because I follow the rules, or laws in some instances.
But, what if I told you that I believe that sometimes a dead-end can be the very place where God wants to show you how big your future is?
What if I told you that I believe that sometimes, it’s when you find yourself at a dead-end that your miracle begins?
You’ve given everything. You have nowhere else to go. There isn’t anywhere else to turn. You either turn around and face what’s behind you OR, you find out what is on the other side of that dead-end sign. And I feel like I should add that both of these options can be both right and wrong at the right and the wrong time. There will be times that you MUST turn around. But, listen, I believe that there will be times that turning around too early may cause you to miss your appointed dead-end miracle.
Recently we moved to a new rental house on a dead-end street. It seems safer, right? One way in and one way out—the main road. That is until I discovered that our dead-end street opens right up to a nearby park! There’s a path that has grown over, but when it’s cut back and trimmed down, it leads right down to one of the city parks.
What appears to be a dead-end in the physical, in the natural, is covered up by trees and leaves, and weeds that have all grown over. But this dead-end surprisingly opens up to a beautiful wooded park. How remarkable!
One morning, a couple of months ago, we woke up to find a turtle in our front yard! I couldn’t even believe it! Where would a turtle have even come from? When a neighbor later told me about the dead-end opening up to a stream in the park, I realized where that turtle had come from!
Life had come to us from the dead-end.
Can I just take a second to remind you that regardless of how it is that life has come to a screeching halt for you in the form of a dead-end, cul-de-sac, at the end of the street, that there is still hope.
Life can come to you at your dead-end.
Regardless of how disappointing or how depressing the end is that you’re staring at right now, you should know that God can take any situation and plow through it to provide a way.
The same God who Old Testament prophets write about and new Testament believers attest to, is the same God who can do in you and for you what He did back in the days that the Bible was written!
Look at what the prophet, Isaiah writes:
“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.”
Isaiah 43:19 NLT
God can take the path that you’re on and create something incredible ahead of you. His promise was that He would make a pathway through the wilderness and create rivers in the dry wasteland! Don’t you think, He could do the same for you?
It might feel like you’re at a dead-end, because that might be true. You might be facing something that is utterly hopeless, and the only hope would be to turn around and backtrack, to find another route. But, what if I told you that what may look hopeless in the natural, could look like something entirely different in the supernatural? What if just beyond what you could see in the natural, was exactly where God had created your breakthrough? What if what opened up right at the start of your dead end, was something incredible ahead of you?
I’m praying that, as you read this, the Holy Spirit would point out the path through the dead-end that you’re facing. I’m praying that the hopelessness you feel in your current situation would dissolve as you find hope even despite your dead-end. I believe that as you turn to Him with faith, believing that God will respond to you, believing that God will move mountains ahead of you, that God will do it! And, so I pray that your dead end would become the very thing that God uses to show you how big your future is.
There is hope for today.