Recently students were discussing roller coaster rides they had been on, and one talked about a ride that took you out, over a body of water … and paused. Then, with no hint at what was coming it went from zero to fifty in the blink of an eye, quickly pulling them backwards, and they could not see where they were going.
One of the students exclaimed,
“that must have been so frightening to not know where you were going?”
To which the other replied,
“Nope! If I saw where I was going, I would have been much more scared.”
Her response got me to thinking …
maybe it is better to not know what is coming in our futures?
Then I remembered a verse, from 1 Corinthians 13:12:
“We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. “(this is such a visual! Haven’t we all been walking driving through thick fog that had all but blinded us? Can’t we all recall, or maybe currently going through a time when the circumstances leave us blinded to what might be ahead for us?)
“But it won’t be long” (it won’t be long! Don’t we all feel the seconds tick by when life is a struggle? This reminder will come to an end) “before the weather clears and the sun shines bright!” (yes! the sun is what we need to focus on … the sun in the sky, and the son who sets us free. It WON’T be long! The fog WILL lift!).
“We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!”
Man, when I look back over different periods of time in my life, I could not have imagined the twists and turns, the joys and sorrows, the triumphs and trials that were about to come … or how they would play out in the greater story of my life.
And so we do not see what is to come, how the problems and struggles end, how the difficult road leads to completion, how the blessings become curses, and the curses become blessings.
Our vision is impaired, as though we are in a fog, or going backwards on a carnival ride. But the fog will lift, and from the reversing ride, we can see how vast the image of life appears, and how pieces have fit together.
But we are not called to just sit there and let it all happen, either. For verse 13 gives us our marching orders:
“But for right now, until that completeness,
we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation:
Trust steadily in God,
hope unswervingly,
love extravagantly.
And the best of the three is love.”
itsawonderfilledlife 