Today I realise that I am beginning a new part of the journey which always brings us deeper into our life in Christ. There is the first visible step of a very new path, something not seen or anticipated, but nevertheless incredibly important in what the future holds.
Yesterday I came to the realisation that we are often so focused on the road directly ahead of us, or checking out things way behind, that we miss what is coming up on either side - in this way we miss the opportunity of being turned into a new path that might not be quite as obvious!
The obvious is what we know is ahead, the things we desire, and the destination we are driving towards. Behind us are also things we know very well - achievements or errors it is all known ground.
Catching what is coming up on us, out of our control, means taking our eyes of the road ahead for a minute and not looking behind. It is a loosening of our control for an instant in time and yet a very necessary part of safely reaching our destination.
In terms of relationship also, it is our ability to see the wider issues, and the things slightly out of our normal focus, that help to build good relationships and take them deeper than the surface relating that so often suffices.
This feels like a season to be very aware of the peripheral things that take a little more effort to see, and are more likely to be glimpsed when we are not so focussed on driving forward at a great pace!
What a ramble this sounds, but I cannot over-emphasise the importance I feel of allowing ourselves time and space to get a look at the wider possibilities, maybe at things that had never caught our attention before, or had been hovering at the back of our awareness and need to be given opportunity to come to the forefront of our thinking.
There are things that will always be foundational and are good and true, and yet in this season we need to understand them in a deeper and different way. Let's not be afraid of the unknown but be willing to hold everything loosely so that we might eventually hold so much more.
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied: 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'
Minnie Louise-Haskins
Desert,'God Knows'.
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