May, 2018.

Sometimes God brings you to places you don’t understand — roads that seem wrong, timing that feels off, paths that don’t match your plans.

For a long time, Yosemite National Park had been on my bucket list. After years of seeing photographs of soaring granite walls and waterfalls pouring over majestic cliffs, I longed to stand there in person, to feel the immensity of God’s creation rise from the valley floor.

Although Yosemite’s beauty knows no season, we had chosen springtime when the dogwoods are blooming and the waterfalls thundering.

But during the spring of the year, the high mountain passes over the Sierra Nevada’s are still buried beneath snow. The only way to reach Yosemite Valley from our home in Minnesota was to detour around to the south or north. We chose the southern route.

In the days leading up to our arrival, the one thing that was giving me anxiety was the weather. I had been checking the forecast like a day trader checks stocks. As an outdoor photographer, I chase early and late light. The golden hour. I knew from experience that nothing can ruin a photo expedition quicker that lousy weather.

At first, the long-range forecast for our six days in the park was a mixed bag. But now, the day before our arrival, the prediction was a week of thick clouds and heavy rain.

As I sat glumly in our Las Vegas hotel room, I checked the forecast one last time. The only decent day was tomorrow, the day of our arrival.

Still, I thought, if we got an early start, we just might make it to Yosemite Valley in time for sunset photos, enough at least to make the trip feel like it was worthwhile.

So we left before sunrise, coffee in hand, hearts hopeful. Nevada’s desert rolled by in wide copper-colored waves. As we crossed into California the terrain shifted – giving way to flat fertile fields of irrigated crops and orchards.

Halfway through the San Joaquin Valley the GPS chimed – a small harmless sound that somehow carried weight.

Road Closure Ahead. Rerouting.

At first, I didn’t question it. We trust these little digital voices without even thinking. But as it led us off the main highway and deeper into the foothills, something in me tightened.

The farther we drove, the stranger the roads became. Soon we were winding along broken stretches of asphalt with grass and weeds sprouting through cracks in the pavement. The kinds of roads that feel forgotten. Abandoned. Roads once paved with purpose but left to the mercy of time and weather.

Old buildings sagged on the hillsides. Rusted trucks sat half-buried in tall grass. Signposts leaned like they were tired of pointing to places no one went anymore.

I’d heard of ghost towns. But never ghost roads.

And for the first time, a thought surfaced —
What if the very thing I’m trusting in is wrong?

The feeling hit fast and hard: a sense of betrayal. What if the GPS, the very tool meant to guide us, was now quietly leading us astray.

Frustration rose in my chest. My shoulders stiffened. I kept glancing at the clock, counting the shrinking minutes of daylight. Every mile we drifted felt like a mile stolen from the sunset and waterfall photos I’d chased in my mind.

I kept glancing at the GPS, wondering if maybe we should turn around, but its confident voice–turn right–turn left, insisted we were on the right path.

Then my worry suddenly deepened. Without warning – the pavement ended.

Not gradually, or with a “Road Closed” sign. It simply stopped. We rolled to a halt, staring at a road that literally disappeared. No way around. No way forward. Just a dead-end in the middle of nowhere.

That’s when fear found me. This wasn’t just about photography anymore. This was about life.

What if we had been led into a place where we shouldn’t be? What if there was no way out?

I breathed a quiet prayer — the kind that rises when pride finally steps aside.

“Lord, please help us find a way out.”

We turned off the GPS, and headed back in the general direction we had come. Our hope was to flag down an oncoming car, or stop at a residence near the road to ask for help. We were not comfortable with either, knowing the people who live in remote places like this like to be left alone. But we were desperate.

Eventually we ended up in the yard of a local – a man who seemed amused by our story, but also genuinely kind. He chuckled softly when he saw where we had ended up, and explained that navigational devices have been misrouting people around these abandoned foothill roads for years.

He gave us clear, simple directions back to the real highway — the one that actually went somewhere — and we gratefully followed them.

By the time we finally entered Yosemite Valley, my nerves were shot. The delays, the detours, the uncertainty — all of it had drained my hope of catching even a few minutes of decent light.

But as we rounded the final bend and the valley opened before us, I felt my breath leave my chest.

The sun was setting behind the cliffs, the golden hour casting warm light across the granite walls. It was the kind of glow photographers dream of — soft, rich, almost ethereal. Half-Dome blazed like brushed bronze. The meadows glowed. Even the Merced River shimmered with reflections of gold.

I lifted my camera and captured every second I could, deeply thankful for what I thought might be the only decent chance I would get for the next six days.

But, somewhere between the ghost roads and the golden sun-kissed valley, something within me had shifted.

I realized that God had been teaching me something far greater than patience. Something deeper than navigation. Something more important than whether I would get the photographs I hoped for.

He was teaching me trust — not the kind that depends on what I can see, but the kind that rests in who He is.

Forecasts fail. GPS signals falter. Roads vanish. Plans unravel.

But God’s direction does not.

And sometimes He leads us through ghost roads and detours not to frustrate us, but to free us — from our need for control, from our reliance on what makes sense, from the belief that we can chart our own course better than He can.

For the next six days, the daily forecast predicted thick clouds and heavy rain. And each day we had beautiful weather. Everyone around us was talking about how different the weather was from the forecast. In my heart, I knew something greater was going on.

By the time we left Yosemite, I realized the trip had given me far more than photographs.

It had given me a clearer picture of God — a God who sees farther ahead than any forecast, who knows the true path when the map is wrong, and who delights in surprising us with goodness we did not expect.

A God who can turn even dead-end roads into places where faith grows.