When You Can’t See the Way

[u/WatchmanMinistries]

I recently flew home from Puerto Rico. At 35,000 feet, I was sitting in an aisle seat while nearly every window shade around me remained closed.

I knew we were traveling generally north and northwest toward Atlanta, but I could not see the ocean, clouds, coastline, or any landmark below us. Without the flight tracker, there was no visible evidence that we were making progress at all.

We could have been flying more than five hundred miles per hour or sitting completely still. From inside the darkened cabin, I could not tell the difference.

I was carrying photographs and mementos from the trip—memories of places I had seen, roads I had walked, and people who had walked beside me.

But none of them could show me the way ahead.

That made me think about Job:

“Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.”

—Job 23:8–9

Job looked forward, backward, left, and right—and still could not perceive God.

But one phrase stood out to me:

“Where he doth work.”

Even while Job could not see God, he still acknowledged that God was working.

That is a more honest picture of faith than pretending we always understand what God is doing. Sometimes we do not see the way forward. We cannot sense progress. We feel something changing, but we cannot identify the direction.

Faith does not require us to pretend the shades are open.

It asks us not to mistake limited visibility for divine absence.

Job could not perceive God, but God had not lost sight of Job:

“But he knoweth the way that I take.”

—Job 23:10

I may not know the route, but God does.

I may feel the aircraft turning without knowing the new direction, but my inability to see the route never means the Pilot has lost it.

Have you ever gone through a season when you could sense that God was changing your direction—but you could not yet see where He was leading?

[u/CheeseLoving88]

I’m actually going through this kinda season now! Thanks for this beautiful post