A View of Nothing
Yesterday, I drove down to the bay to meet a girlfriend for a walk. It was a beautiful foggy morning. The leaves are turning orangey brown hues and falling as if to say “I am done with summer…aren’t you?” The air was nippy and inviting sweaters. My friend was running a few minutes late so I stood along the waters edge just looking out. As I did I noticed this sign post. So I walked up and looked at it.
This sign stood on the edge of this view. You were supposed to be able to stand here and look directly ahead and see several different mountains, points, hills and islands. I have walked this path a thousand times and have never noticed this sign that diagrams all of the gorgeous landmarks I take for granted to be the scenery of my life. And then the one day I notice this map of sorts, I look up to find the Twin Sisters, Chuckanut Island and Bayview Hill to see this…
Fog. Nothing but fog. A horizon of who knows what….I stood on what is apparently the edge of destination and I couldn’t see squat. It might as well have been a white wall with a smoke machine. I thought…this is so often how life feels. We stand on the edge of something…a new horizon, a big decision, the end of a road or it’s beginning and it feels like we have no idea what is in front of us. And we think we are going to have to guess our way ahead blindly or we are going to have to wait for things to clear up. So often I find that many of us have destinations we are hoping to arrive at and journeys we would like to travel and yet we feel like the path before us is so very foggy. I am reminded of what God says in
Isaiah 42:16 I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
For those of you who stand at a map just like this and you know that your potential is out there, God promises He will lead you as blind as you feel. For those of you who face a foggy future and are confused by your own life’s direction, God promises He will guide you along unfamiliar paths. If you stand on what feels very very dark, the same God who spoke light into being promises HE will turn what seems so dark into light, right in front of your very eyes. If you came to see something beautiful and you’ve hit a rough patch, God says ‘I will smooth things out‘. He says these are the things I will do and what I will do is never leave you. The views might change from here to there and so might the clarity, but there is one thing that never changes and that is Who made the horizons in the first place. As unclear as the horizon may be, I am thinking we should stand on the edge of this view and trust what is on the other side.
