Taking the Scenic Route with God, a devotional thought

I was reading in Exodus for my devotions the other day and something in 13:17-18 had me thinking. It's just after the people have left Egypt and they're on their way to the promised land, but instead of taking them the most direct route (through the Philistine country), God leads them on a very circuitous route, through the desert toward the Red Sea. God's reasoning for leading his people on the long way around: "If they face war (in the Philistine territory) they might change their minds and go back to Egypt."

Now: you have to be careful, I realize, not to over-spiritualize the Old Testament stories, and not to hyper-individualize them, either, so I won't push this too far, but the obvious question arose for me when I read that: could it be that sometimes God does this with us, too? Maybe Exodus 3:17-18 speaks to those times in our lives when it feels like nothing's happening, spiritually speaking, that we're going around in circles, or at least taking the long way to get to where God wants us.

Could it be, when God's taking us on the long way around, that maybe it's because he knows something we don't know, and if he were to take the most direct route (in our ministries, let's say, or our discipleship, maybe, or what have you), if he were to take us there immediately the difficulties we'd encounter would be so great that we'd be tempted to give up altogether?

Be patient, and keep walking, even if the path you're on with him today is not "the shortest distance from point A to point B." God sees our whole journey at once, not just this particular leg, and who knows but that this rabbit trail, or this pit stop, such as it is, is also part of his beautiful, perfect wisdom.