This weekend I had to drive home in
some pretty dense fog after dark. I
prayed before I left, and the road in front of me and the traffic around me
stayed visible through the duration of the trip. I was thankful to have the visibility I
needed to drive confidently and get where I needed to go, but I still hated not
being able to see much to either side of the road. The deer are plentiful in this area, and
though it was past dusk, I remained tense and alert to anything that might jump
out in front of me. The fog that
swallowed up the fields and creeks around me brought back memories of cloudy,
new moon nights of driving in the sparsely populated expanses of Wyoming. The darkness was so heavy that it almost made
me feel like I was suspended in space and about to fall. Driving in oceans of fog or darkness, with
all of the hidden creatures and landscapes, is just an eerie, unsettling
experience when I focus on all of the unknowns and what-ifs of the unseen.
The same discomfort and fear creeps
into my heart sometimes when I focus on the unknowns of what I can’t see in my
life. Often, God only shows us just what
we need to get where He wants us to go.
Most of us don’t like that. We
think that if we could just see a little bit of the future – or all of it for
that matter – that we could make better choices and avoid ever getting hurt. We want the sense of control that comes with
being able to make independent decisions based on all available information
without having to trust God. Yet, Jesus
submitted Himself to the Father and trusted Him. Jesus endured unspeakable suffering and
hardship because the prize was worth the pain.
We do not become more like Christ by living independently or by seeking
trouble-free lives. Someday, we will in
practice be what we are already in position – complete and mature in
Christ. In that day, there will be no
more tears, sorrow, pain, or death. But
for now, we sometimes need the chipping, the burning, and the scraping of
hardship to shape us, strengthen us, and refine us. God knows this, and He also knows that most
of us would run from it if we could. In
doing so, we would remain ineffectual, incomplete, and infantile in our
spirituality and in our mission.
I still remember sitting at Donna’s
(one of my primary Bible teachers and mentors) house and talking about this
very thing during my high school years and first couple years of college – years
that for many involve lots of big decisions in the midst of a sea of unknowns
and waiting. She told me that if God did
allow us to see everything, we would more than likely wish He hadn’t. He gives us strength to face the things that
we have to face today. There might be a
lion waiting for us on the road ahead, and if we were to see it now, we would
be faint or paralyzed in fear. We would
be distracted from the things that we needed to face today. Knowledge is not always empowering;
sometimes, it is crippling. God is
merciful in showing us just what we need to see when we need to see it, and He
gives us the strength that is needed when it is needed – not before.
Just like He gave me the visibility
I needed to get home this weekend, God has given us exactly what we need to be
able to do and to become what He asks of us today. We do our part by obeying and submitting to
what He has revealed. We allow ourselves
to be made better in our suffering instead of being made bitter. We remain alert and prepared for the deer that
may jump out as we follow the path before us, but we do not cower in fear or
grasp for desperate control of the uncontrollable. We do what God has set before us, and we
trust Him with the rest. He loves us,
and He is trustworthy.
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