This week I did some traveling, which is always fun! The morning we flew out of El Paso, was very overcast, with some very heavy cloud cover. As the plane rose higher into the cloud cover, our visibility became so limited that there was a point in the trip where all I could see was clouds. I couldn’t see where we had just lifted off from and I certainly could not see beyond the cloudy atmosphere. This really made me think of how much faith I had to have in that cloudy moment.
It took faith to trust the that the pilots understood enough about our flight plan to be able to navigate the aircraft towards our destination. It took faith to trust that the instruments in the aircraft were adequate to guide us towards our destination, even if we could not see beyond the clouds at that point in the journey. It really takes faith to navigate through times of limited visibility.
Whether or not you’ve been on a plane lately, I think we can all relate to having “cloudy moments” in our life journey. These are the times where we know exactly where we’re supposed to be going, but there are so many things obstructing our view. These obstructions could be fear, they could be insecurity, it could be hurt; for some of us, we might have so much going on, we can’t see our next step. Whatever your “clouds” are, I want to remind you today that we are not called to walk by what we see, we are called to live a life of faith.
Faith is not defined by trying to help God out using our own ability to make things happen. No, it’s defined by living everyday with complete trust and hopeful expectation that God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we could ask or even think, and that His power is at work in everything we do.
See, much like I had to surrender my trust into the hands of the pilot when I was flying through the clouds, we are challenged to surrender our hope and trust into the hands of Jesus. I believe that this is truly our great hope! That when we are in times of limited visibility, our hope says, “not only does Jesus know the way, Jesus IS the way!”
“Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” John 14:5-6 (ESV)
The clarity of your purpose and direction on the road of your life comes from knowing Jesus. The more clearly you can see Jesus in your journey, the more confident you become in the direction He is leading you. Even when the clouds are thick and you can’t see the road ahead of you, if you know Jesus, you know the way!
So for those cloudy days, when you can’t see what the next step is, I challenge you, stop walking by sight. Walking by sight requires being able to see the next step. Choose to walk by faith, live with a growing trust and confidence that God can do what He said He can do. This faith says, “I won’t lose hope when I can’t see the next step. I will remain hopeful because I know the way.” Jesus is the way!
Live extraordinarily!
Jared
