BitterSweetLife

Sometimes the trajectory of life eludes me. I know it’s there. I even “know,” banking on God’s sovereignty, that I’m on the right track because I haven’t openly defied God or pulled a break & run stunt like Jonah, boarding a plane to escape an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent Creator. No dice - and, to be honest, no great draw. What's the point?

While it’s good to be somewhat scared of God, we’re assured that he doesn’t play games with his people, dangling his “will” in front of them like a piñata, then jerking it away when we take a blind swing. That’s a relief, a theological caveat that I often lean on: 1. There is a plan. 2. God is not grinning and hiding it from me.

Maybe what I’m looking for is the appropriate metaphor. I believe that my life, that each of our lives, is a ray, with a discrete starting point and an infinitely extending direction of travel. We know where we began and we know, vaguely, since the beauties of Heaven are beyond our ability to comprehend, where we are headed. It’s the part in between that gets me.

Is the road covered in fog? Have the lights gone out on the interstate? Is the ray of my life passing through the hollow center of a cylinder?

It’s a comfort to me that at twelve years of age, Jesus was foiled in his attempt to start doing his Father’s work—and Jesus had what you call foresight. Likewise, I think that David was probably taken off guard by all the years he spent running for his life in the wilderness. Moses spent four decades herding sheep around mountains with non-incendiary shrubbery. Paul spent several years out in the desert doing we’re not sure what. I’m not saying that I’m in good company, which would imply that I’m tight with Jesus, Moses and the boys, but I find the pattern of mysterious lag-time in these heroic lives very comforting.

It’s enough for me to consider the two poles of my life, a couple of dots on a map with crowded topography, and acknowledge that they will be connected. I can't supply mileage, exits, or ETA. Just know that, via the enigmatic grace of God, I’ll get there.