And Then What Appears

 

 

I was hiking with my sister-in-law Amy this past weekend, uncovering some trails that were unknown to her but so familiar to me that those footpaths were engraved in my mind's eye with their turns, ascents, and waterfalls around the next bend. 

She had no idea what to expect. 

But any adventure always leads us, stretches us, weathers us, strengthens us to another revealed dimension of God, that which we never realized before.

We never know how much more there might be -- even on familiar terrain.  Even ordinary paths are not limited by the ordinary.  It is not just what we explore along the way, but the discoveries already there which change us.

The things we learn will always be partially incomplete, because "yet" always looms, not just in the next, but in the now.  Always more.  Always something more.  Creation has a way of showing us that.

Amy and I had a few minutes before we had to return to the car at the trailhead.  I whispered, "Follow me.  You have to see this."  And we took a trail that doesn't appear on any trail map, just a narrow footpath wandering into the forest, flanked by flowering rhododendrons, ducking under a fallen tree, and climbing over another that blocked the way.

And then what came into view was an unexpected bridge.  I knew what was coming.  But it is still a delight to me, this narrow cable bridge long forgotten in an unimaginable spot, providing an unexpected way to continue over the thunderous waters.

And it is always a visual reminder to me.  There is never a "dead end" path but that some kind of bridge suddenly appears in the deep dark forest to take us farther.  Or suddenly His courage seeps into our hearts to navigate us across the mossy rocks and rushing waters.  Or suddenly we realize His strength to stay where we are needed, or even to return a little different, a little stronger than when we started out.

Countless times in my life when I was unsure and afraid, God provided a narrow cable bridge out of the blue, which I didn't see coming and sometimes did not understand in the moment.  Not necessarily another direction, but another provision, sometimes a protection.  I am not so lost or stuck as I often initially imagine, until I bring it before the Lord.  Nothing, but nothing, that God does not redeem.

In Wendell Berry's collection of short stories Watch With Me (1994), an odd assortment of characters are wandering through the countryside, not knowing where they are, nor where they are going.

 

Tom Hardy said.  “Do you know where we are?”

“I know within three or four miles, I reckon,” Tol said.

“Do you know, Burley?”

“Right here,” Burley said.

 

I may not know what I am doing here.  And hardly what is next, even five minutes from now.  But indeed, we are right here.  What are we going to do with that?  Am I willing to trust God in the now and in the next?  God provides.  God redeems.  And then what appears in the mysterious and difficult?

The bridge of His faithfulness. 

 

Your way was through the sea,

Your path through the great waters,

yet Your footprints were unseen.

                      Psalm 77. 19

 

God provides the unexpected bridges to get us there.

Trusting not just in what appears,

or in what I am going through,

or by how He provides in surprising ways,

       but trusting Him.