Living in the Fog
July 17, 2019
A few weeks ago, while I was teaching in Germany, I went on a quest to purchase authentic cuckoo clocks for my family. Since I was in the Black Forest area, there was no better place to go than to Triberg in the Schwarzwald to purchase these wood carved treasures. This was not my first time to visit Triberg, but it was a beautiful, clear, blue sky day trip which prompted a memory in time, as well as an inspired thought or two about God and time.
A Memory in Time
A few years ago I attempted to take a dear friend to Triberg via a scenic trek through the Black Forest. On the beautiful day we set out, we had to navigate windy roads and some hairpin turns, which would be challenging in the best of weather conditions. As we made our way, a dense fog descended upon us in an instant, and visibility was immediately restricted to the distance from my steering wheel to the windshield. All of a sudden we were thrown into a mist of uncertainty as to our surroundings and our path moving forward.
My imagination took over as I no longer pictured the once visible forest along the roadside as rolling hillsides, but rather, as deep cliffs from which we would plunge with one false turn. My friend and I did not say anything out loud about PANIC at the time, although I know I was feeling it. However, I wanted to be a good example of calm, especially as the one driving, so we mutually agreed it was best to abort our trip and reverse direction. My friend never did see the quaint town of Triberg, with its boast of carvers of wood, cuckoo clocks, and cherry cake to be devoured at cafes near the cascading waterfalls.
A Timeless and Fogless God
Sometimes I find myself in a dense spiritual fog, where I cannot see the road ahead and I do not know how to move forward. And like the silence which often accompanies a heavy fog, I feel God has become quiet about my circumstances. My imagination takes over and concludes that God is not listening, speaking, seeing, caring or even attempting to lift the fog. Emotions set in, I begin to doubt God’s love for me, and I begin to wonder how I should live in the fog without panic? Do I abort my walk with the Lord? Do I reverse direction? Or do I wait for God to lift the fog and make the picture crystal clear again?
How to not Panic in the Fog
Fog has the ability to blind our vision as to our immediate surroundings and circumstances. Clocks have the capacity to make us time-bound creatures who demand to understand things NOW, in present time, or at least SOONER rather than LATER.
However, God is not locked into our view of time. With Him there is no day, no night, no month, and no years. God has no past, present, or future! God has the ability to penetrate the fog and transcend time. He knows the bigger picture and is at work, even when our finite eyes do not comprehend the fog, and our feeble hearts doubt His presence. So how do we live in the fog without panic? We need to live by faith and trust in the character of God. Philip Yancey once said, “Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”
And in God’s timing, in His time, and only in His time, He will lift the fog!