Forward Into the Unknown

The past two weekends we have travelled east from Central Oregon to Nampa, Idaho.  If you have been aware of the weather at all, you know, this really isn’t the best time to be driving all over the place.  It’s snowy and icy, and turns long drives into longer ones.  Coming back from Idaho, we encountered weather we did not expect: fog.  It was night and the fog was so thick that we could only see about two and half, maybe three feet in front of our car.  We knew we would have to drive more slowly due to the “spots of ice” and packed snow, but this took us down to a crawl.   What do you do when you don’t know if there are deer or cattle roaming across the road? When you have no idea how far ahead of you the next car is or how fast it’s going? What do you do when you can’t see what’s in front of you, but you still have to go on?

Life is so much like this sometimes, isn’t it?  We have clear days when it seems like we can see far into the future, the road is mapped out for us, we can see potential dangers as they come up and react well in advance, we know where to go and can see how to get there.  Then there are times when we are fogged in.  The natural reaction is to stop or turn back, to wait until the fog clears.  When we were caught in fog my first reaction was to turn back and wait until morning, but Kevin felt confident that we could move forward.  Often that’s what we are called to do, to move forward into the mist and through the fog.  Why did he feel confident in doing this?  Because we were on the same road we’d been on when it was clear.  The fog did not change the reality of the road, just our perception.  Though it was much harder to tell how far along we were, we still knew how to get home.  We did have to go slowly, cautiously, but that’s not such a bad thing.

Sometimes God gives us a vision for our future and then the vision gets cloudy, fog rolls in.  We start to doubt the path He has set us on and we want to turn back, we want to be able to see what He has promised.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Faith is what keeps us moving forward, knowing that what we hope for is there even though we can’t see it.  God has given us a vision for ministry in Southeast Asia, a promise that we will get to participate in the building of His kingdom there.  He has promised to provide for our needs.  When things seem to get fuzzy and the details don’t seem to be working out as we desire, it isn’t because the reality of what He’s called us to do has changed.  Sometimes, it does mean that we slow to a crawl, even a long pause, but we won’t turn back.  We have very little idea of what actually lies ahead in this situation, just the assurance that our all-knowing God is preparing the way for us to walk in, He’s making our paths straight.  So we will creep along in the fog and pick up speed on the clear days knowing, not hoping, that we are still on the road home.