Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding (Proverbs 9:6).

After a brief vacation on the coast of Croatia, we were driving back around the city and into the mountains, headed towards a conference in Slovenia.  But when it came to lunchtime and we still hadn't cleared the city of Rijeka, we decided that it might be nice to stop somewhere just within the city and enjoy a picnic with one last, lingering view of the Adriatic Sea -- before heading onwards to our destination.  We consulted our maps and deciphered a route that would seem to take us just a bit into Rijeka, just along a residential area which would surely have some parks looking out over the sea, we thought -- but still leave us close enough to the highway that we could jump back onto our planned route quickly and easily.  It seemed like it would be perfect.  The children were playing contentedly in the back seat, so it seemed like there was no reason not to make this little detour.

In the beginning, the plan went off without a hitch.  We found the exit we needed and started driving through the leafy green residential district up on the cliffs above the Adriatic.  The only problem was that we couldn't see any parks at which we could stop.  We couldn't even see any parking lots with a view.  We crept closer and closer to the center of Rijeka, without finding any decent picnic spots.  When we passed a sign pointing out a way back to the highway, we briefly deliberated:  Should we abort this "picnic mission" or continue?  The sun and the sea begged us to continue:  Wouldn't a picnic overlooking the sea be so lovely?  Thus, we ignored our better judgment and pressed on.  Five minutes later, we still hadn't found a passable picnic spot, and then the road veered to the right:  away from the coast and into the city.  Certainly not what we'd had in mind.  Again, we deliberated:  Should we just turn around and beat it back to the highway, or should we press on in hopes of finding either a picnic spot or an alternative route back to the highway?  The thoughts in our "council of the car" started to diverge, some voting for an about-face, others voting to continue.  In the end, we decided to press on, and five minutes later, we hit the traffic jam.  Not just any traffic jam, but a southern-European, bumper-to-bumper, honking and shouting, every-man-for-himself kind of traffic jam.  Going nowhere fast.

It was around this time that the children started complaining.  "It's too hot back here... This is boring... When are we gonna stop and eat? ...I'm hungry."  The littlest one started to cry.  But there was nothing that we could do.  We couldn't move forward, but neither could we move backwards or to the sides.  We were walled in on every side by automobiles and buildings and one-way streets.  By that point, the only way out was to patiently inch our way forwards.  Suffice to say:  Rijeka became a nightmare for us.  We never did get to stop for our picnic, and it was only an hour and a half later that we rejoined the highway and continued our journey.  Rijeka was a very, very, very bad experience for us.  It's laughable now, but it was tragic at the time.  All we would have had to do was stop, cut our losses, turn back around, and rejoin the highway at any one of our points of deliberation -- and we could have been saved.  But we didn't, and we suffered for it.

Repentance is the road out of Rijeka.  It's so simple and clear-cut that it seems ridiculous.  But with so many of the jams we get ourselves into, the answer is simply abandoning our foolish course and rejoining God's wisdom for us.  "Leave your simple ways and you will live."  Stop the car, do a three-point turn, and get back to the highway as soon as it starts to dawn on you that you've made a dumb decision.  "Walk in the way of understanding."  Maps and established routes have a distinct advantage over the "tourist's intuition."  They give us greater righteousness, greater well-being, and greater happiness.  All we have to do is repent of our foolish decisions and turn back to God's wisdom.  If you press on, yes, you may eventually figure another way out of the mess; there are, in fact, many roads out of Rijeka.  But repentence is the best one, I think.