When the Path Is Unclear

What does guidance look like through the low-visibility moments of life?

Some memories don’t dim with time. Over 45 years ago, I snaked up a treacherous road in the San Bernardino mountains of Southern California while a wintery mix swirled, suspended within a cold, deep fog. I had spent the weekend “down the mountain,” as the locals said. Now it was Sunday night, and Bible School classes started Monday morning up in these mountains.

Once I reached a certain elevation, visibility was nil. Guardrails protected most of the right side of the road. On this night they looked like flimsy barriers to deathly drops into the valley below. Trusting the guardrails, but not seeing the way ahead through the windshield, I decided to open the driver’s-side car door enough to look down and be guided by the yellow line in the middle of the road, driving about five miles per hour.

It is nuts what a passionate 22-year-old will do! I don’t think I’d ever do it again!

I still need guidance through the moments of low visibility in life, the times when the path is unclear, when I am not sure God really loves me and has a plan for my life.

When I don’t know what to do, how to please God, or make the right decision, my stomach can get upset and my head might hurt, complete with a jaw clenched into a TMJ episode.

I’ve been at this Jesus-stuff for many decades. Why does trust get tested in the big moments of life? Why can’t we learn trust in a one-and-done way?

Trust is not like riding a bike or playing a keyboard. Trust is personal: person-to-Person. As humans, we vacillate in our faith. We can tend to feel strong in the regular moments in life, yet tested when unexpected challenges arise.

It’s then that our thinking gets muddled.

Are you familiar with the word anthropomorphism? This means attributing to God human characteristics. Given the limits of our knowledge, it is not surprising that we tend to think of God in terms that are familiar to the human experience. But such thinking can go wrong: I feel lost, so God must be wandering around too. I can’t see the future, so God must be blind too. I can’t come up with a confident plan, so God must not have one either.

It is easy to imagine the Jews living in the Babylonian exile feeling just that way: Where is God? I thought we were in his hand, that he had a plan. Our forebearers had no ability to conceive of rescue from their predicament. Disappointment led to despair; despair to doubting the person and work of God. How does 70 years in captivity facilitate God’s work in and through his people? You know that question was asked every day.

Into that bleakness, God spoke:

I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

This verse has been slapped on coffee mugs for a nice start to the morning. Sometimes it has been a slap at people, shaming them when they are walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Other times it is prooftexted as a spiritual Band-Aid. It is very possible, even likely, that you have experienced this verse as trivial, hurtful, or as one taken out of context for someone else’s agenda.

But this verse means a great deal. It portrays something vital about the relationship between God and his people. This verse was given to the people of God at a specific time and for a specific reason. And, as part of the people of God, this is also our strong promise based on the God who made it, not on our circumstances and despite its misuse.

So, let’s break it down.

• I know: The I is significant. It distinguishes between our mind and God’s; and it contrasts with the false prophets on the loose among Jewish believers. In this case, anthropomorphism fails: When we don’t know, God does.

• I have plans for you: Regardless of the plight of your current circumstances, God has not forgotten you.

• To prosper you: You will come home not just to your land, but you will be at home with God again. Closeness, or intimacy, is imagined here for a people who feel God is far away.

• Not to harm you: This circumstance is not permanent, and you will be sustained as you go through this confusing trial.

• To give you a future: The present pain is real, but rescue and restoration are coming.

• To give you a hope: Your predicament is within my plan and will end within my purposes.

The false prophets were wrong when they told the Jewish people God’s deliverance was coming soon. They merely projected their thoughts onto God. There would be a long wait. The mentality of the people was wrong too. As they felt abandoned, they projected their sense of isolation onto God.

In reality, and with thousands of years of hindsight, we can see that God had a plan. God’s people were invited to trust that plan even when everything in them wanted to project onto God their fearful uncertainties.

But God has his own thoughts: thoughts toward you. Those are some of the most comforting, faith-inspiring words in all scripture. The thoughts of God, not our circumstances or our failures, are determinative. It gets my attention every time: “Wow, God, who is running the universe, thinks about me!”

Within those thoughts are God’s intention, his plans. But they only have significance, and only come alive, when we trust him.

God never bullies. His plans stand before us as an invitation. Accepting that invitation may require faith to drive through blinding fog, but if you keep at it, keep using the vision you do have, you will come home to God, to his purposes, to the joy of knowing, trusting, and living in his plan. And you will do so with God, the Trustworthy One.