You could end up in a ditch or a desert wilderness
Of course, there are occasional problems that come up, detours that may happen, and those inevitable mistakes that we make along the way. These things are frustrating, aggravating, and troubling, being that the only person we can blame for these situations is ourselves. But even then, there is no reason to think that there is no way out of the mess. The lives of many famous entrepreneurs have many failures prior to the great successes we know them for. Thomas Edison tried thousands of different substances for the filament of his incandescent light bulb before finding the right combination of materials. Howard Shore, of Starbuck's fame, ran a small three store chain of coffee stores before he developed it into the famous brand it is today. Many men and women have endured bankruptcy, foreclosure, and economic failure before finding the right way to thrive.
Two great epic failures in the Bible are notable in regards to ditches and deserts. When the children of Israel had come triumphantly through the Red Sea and travelled to the great mountain of God's presence, Mount Sinai, some of the people decided that Moses had been gone up into the mountain too long, and that it might be a good idea to make a new god for themselves out of the gold they had gotten from the Egyptians. They decided on a calf for some reason, and of all people Aaron, Moses' brother, made the idol for the people. A bad news/good news scenario was presented at this point. The bad news was that God was ticked off because He had personally spoken before the entire nation of Israel only days before about His feeling regarding other Gods, which was pretty much that they were totally off limits, no exceptions, period. And the good news was that God was in a listening mood when Moses asked that God spare the people because it would look bad to the other nations if God wiped out the Israelites and started over with another group of folks. Even Aaron was allowed to continue to live and he even served as the first High Priest of God's tabernacle, which was the first place of worship and gathering established for the nation.
Epic failure number two was when David, the young man and not a king yet at this point, was chased away from King Saul's court and looked to a find shelter in the court of Achish, the King of Gath, a city of the Philistines. That's right, I said the Philistines. Now why would that be a problem, you say? Well, you see, David became famous when he was young by killing a giant man named Goliath. Any guess as to where Goliath was from? You got it, Philistia. And then there was the pop song of the day that must have been quite a catchy tune, because even the Philistines knew it. One servant turned to the other and said, “Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying: ‘Saul has slain his thousands,and David his ten thousands’?” Great lyrics for sure, but there was a problem with the whole "and David his ten-thousands." Ten thousands of who? Philistines, that's who! To get out of this situation alive, David had to slobber all over himself and pretend to be a madman, and slink away as quick as possible. He then spent several years wandering the deserts and being chased by the power crazy King Saul.
While it is possible to make light of these total epic failures from the Bible, the real truth here is that even though Aaron really shouldn't have made the idol for the children of Israel, he did eventually get to his place of calling and destiny by becoming the High Priest of God and being the father of the entire Aaronic priesthood. And David didn't just live a life of being chased through the desert by evil kings. He brought together into one nation all of the tribes of Israel and became their King and reigned for a long time in success. Of course, both of these guys had more mistakes than just one. However, even with those failures, God honored their faith and perseverance and used them in ways that are remembered as examples to us all. So even when we make huge blunders in life, God is able to make things come together in the end.
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