Trust Over Sight

 As I drive down the hillside from my home, I look out and notice the mountains - normally so clear this time of year - are hidden in fog. Dense-clouds hide what I know exists, making me think about how one wouldn't even know the peaks were there had one not seem them before. 

How often do I make assumptions, form opinions, reach conclusions based on what I see at present rather than what I already know to exist and be true? 

Sun beams down, and I know I'm driving toward the fog and not away from it. Soon, warm-light will fade and I will be pressing through all that's obscured, trusting prior experience to get me to where I need to go, even though it's harder to see my way. 

I ponder on all the fog-seasons I've been through and how, as each one makes it appearance, I'm faced with the decision to judge my circumstances based on what I can see or to fall back onto past-proof and believe in what I can't see. 

It always amazes me how often I choose the former. Find it natural to discern off of what I see when, deep in the soul, I know He calls me to have faith in what and in Whom I cannot see. It's like this built-in default setting, always drawing me back to a place of doubt even after years of walking with a trustworthy Savior. 

Faith is a choice, child. Remember. 

Car reaches all-clouds, and the sun disappears. Warmth fades, and somehow my heart knows it's felt this before. Many times. I cannot walk in constant sight, continuous light. This I know, but I still fail to trust there's hope in the dark. That the shadows have their place, too. But God is still teaching me, poor student that I am...

I recall all the ways He says that those who cannot see are blessed. That the soul-blind who believe are of more worth than the seeing who do not believe. And when the fog descends, He descends. The thick-dark doesn't hide the ever-present God, however hidden He may seem. Just like the mountains that still exist, He still exists even when it feels He is nowhere to be found. And I'm trying to understand. Trying to pray this truth into my amnesia-stricken soul. 

And perhaps this is what Emerson meant when he stated, "All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen." 

When you have tasted the faithfulness and provision of God, you walk into all fog-seasons with hope. Or at least you should. But that doubting heart still calls, still beckons and questions. Tries to get you to think your vision is the only reliable truth. But the mind must remember. The soul must fall back on one's own history with God and ask if one has ever not been held, not been kept. 

The fog always burns off. So, too, do the seasons of hiddenness pass. God always comes through and always brings you through. You are never not safe, not loved, not cared for. And when it's hard to see Him, He still sees and watches over you. 

So be Thou our vision, Lord and King. What is obscured to us is not hidden to You, and never is there a moment when we are not carried safely through.  Help us to remember, faulty though our memory. For all the past times when trouble befell, Your hand still led gently to the other side. Let us recall that when the dense-cloud settles, for soon, blue sky and warm-light will return. Until then, may we trust Your eyes over our own. For Thy sight will never fail and is always worth our trust.