It had been a few weeks since we had hiked this trail in the woods. The trees stood their ground in the sepia colors of the season, and the sunlight filtered through the branches like the glory of God.
But where was the trail?
The fallen leaves and ravages of the winter composed wall to wall carpeting across the forest floor and over the path. A few people had gone on before us and marked the way by navigating the muddy parts or shuffling the leaves like the parting of the Red Sea. But more than once, I had to hesitate to see where the trail was. More than a few times, it was a matter of taking just one step, trusting I was still on route and not just wandering.
The only way I knew where I was treading was because I had been on this trail before. It was a familiar place to me. I knew there was a path, even if I couldn't see it right before me.
That is what trust is all about. Not just what I know. But Who I know.
God has written into each of our lives a chronicle of His faithfulness. We may have not been in this particular place in the past, but we have trusted Him before. And trust is built in layers.
God will make a way where there seems to be no way. We have sung that song before.
I can remember vividly a situation now almost eight years ago. We were standing at the intersection of some huge changes. My husband and I had thought about moving, but were not quite sure. We prayed about it. We talked about it. And it became evident to us both to just take one step, even though we didn't quite know what we were doing or where we were going.
"Do you trust Me one step?" we felt like God was saying to us. And when we stepped out in the darkness, solid ground rose up beneath our feet. Just that one step. "Do you trust Me another step?" Even if we couldn't see how this trail was leading? Or even if there was a trail at all?
That was the path we took through the woods the other day. Take one step and the next becomes evident. Not any further than that. Am I willing to trust God, watch, wait and listen to Him?
Sometimes our trail is obvious. And sometimes it is not. We may think we know where we are going, but there is always that which we cannot yet see.
When we trust God, we walk differently. We see new vistas. We see even the familiar in more detail. We tread carefully, watching out for pitfalls, roots and rocks, the slippery spots, and the don't-get-too-haughty parts. It is not the boulders that trip us up, but a singular small stone or uneven ground that appears so innocent, even hidden among the leaves. Those are the ones that bring us down to a screeching halt, as happened to me more times than I care to admit, on the flattest, smoothest part of the trail of all.
God never promised that we would not fall, scrape our knees, or wound our pride. But He does promise to give us the strength to get up again. And again. And again. And God does not let it paralyze us.
We do not walk, hike or run alone.
In his devotional My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers expresses the sense of adventure that should mark us:
"...we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He packs our life with surprises all the time."
Am I willing to trust God and even take a first step? God may be leading somewhere entirely foreign than what I anticipate. God may also be leading me to live differently right where I am. Poet Luci Shaw wrote an entire book entitled The Crime of Living Cautiously.
We spend far too much time looking for new doors to appear when indeed every day is a threshold. It may lead to something new or just to something now, or even to the not yet. Don't think of doors, but passages. That courage always leads us to Him.
I may not be able to see the trail, but there is a way. And if not, God makes one for us. Sometimes He even leads us to bushwhack. I've seen too much to question God in this. The Bible is woven with off-road routes to a deeper understanding of Him.
Behold, I am with you
and will keep you
wherever you go...
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep
and said,
"Surely the LORD is in this place,
and I did not know it."
Genesis 28. 15-16
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