Foggy Thoughts

I stepped out into a world of white, soupy stillness, as if the very air was holding its breath. I love fog.

Fog to me speaks of mystery, adventure. I love the stories of Sherlock Holmes because of the mysteries and the clever ways that Holmes pierces the veil of crimes and clues to arrive at a solution. But I also love the descriptions of London at the turn of the century, of hansoms rattling through quiet streets, the clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages, and the foggy blanket Conan Doyle often describes London nestling under. Read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot for another wonderful depiction of fog, a yellow fog in that instance. 

Fog always gives me a thrill, for it bespeaks adventure and mystery. I feel like anything can happen on a foggy day. A bloody stranger can stagger up to the door and collapse with a cryptic message on their dying lips. A band of bandits can emerge and bushwhack lonesome travelers. Intrepid investigators can track a criminal through silent streets, each a shadowy threat to the other. No gun fire; fog is reserved for daggers or fists, or a chloroformed handkerchief. Anything can happen in fog.

So I enjoyed the drive to church today, as the world disappeared swiftly in my rearview mirror, and slowly parted to reveal only a half mile in front. I turned off the radio and listened for cryptic messages, wishing I could track a gang of bank robbers or embark on a dire quest. I yearned for adventure, mystery. 

And then I realized that life itself is rather mysterious. The future lays enshrouded in mist, inscrutable as the roads today. Who knows what will appear suddenly? Who knows who shall cross my path a year from now, or a month, or even a week? My quests might not hold the import of the Fellowship of the Ring, but what they sacrifice in romance they make up in realism. 

You might argue that, based on prior events, the future won’t be very exciting. Go to work, go home, veg in front of the tube, go to bed, rinse and repeat until the weekend, with an occasional evening activity thrown in. Certainly my life isn’t a thrill ride at the moment. But here’s where the new life in Christ comes in, because He’s got plans, jobs that need doing, and all He needs are hands and feet and voices and hearts. And we are afforded the wondrous opportunity to be those hands and feet, to speak in His name, to extend our hearts to others by His power and love. If we acknowledge Him in all our ways, He will direct our paths, as the Proverb teaches. 

Who knows where He will direct our path? Who know how He will accomplish His will? What if He puts you in a trying job for three years so that, after months of prayer and wondering, a co-worker asks you about Christ? Could you have predicted that three years of swallowing insults and mockery, of refusing to laugh at a vulgar jest, of remaining honest and true even to your own detriment, would be a brighter witness than the most persuasive speech on the cross and the empty tomb? What if He engineered that car accident and the subsequent injury solely so your physical therapist could see you rejoice in the midst of agonizing pain? What if the transfer away from your friends and church and family that you bridled at initially was used to lead to a ministry that you otherwise would never have known about?

How unsearchable are His ways beyond our understanding! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Well, our opportunity is for the Lord to make His mind known to us, if we let Him. And then, who knows what might happen?

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After church I went out to lunch with some dear friends. As I navigated to the restaurant, I was struck anew by the severely diminished visibility that fog produces. It’s mysterious, yes, but also slightly perilous. Common sense advises you to slow down, peer closely at what lies ahead. On a clear day, the location of the restaurant in the shopping center would have been readily apparent. Even though I generally knew where it was, however, I was driving semi-blind. It suddenly materialized and I had to respond quickly to enter the correct turn-off. 

When your capacity to predict outcomes diminishes, you must be on alert. A lasses-faire attitude can produce catastrophic results, as the traffic accidents during the winter prove. Such is life, no? If we sleepwalk through our day, how much easier is it to be blindsided with disaster! The shock alone has devastating effects, sometimes greater than the actual results of the incident. The first time I was fired from a job came on a weekday, not Friday or Monday. In the early afternoon, I was called into the supervisor’s office and told I had been terminated. They accompanied me to my desk and escorted me to the elevator. No warning, no indication, just a 2x4 across the temple. I was emotionally winded, like I’d fallen down a mine shaft. I’d been lazing my way through the job, thoroughly unmotivated to excel, bored to the nth degree. I haven’t had a full time job since, almost three years now. 

The other effect of driving through the fog, like being dropped in a stormy sea, with waves obscuring your vision, is that you have to rely on something beyond your own abilities. Had I a GPS device, I could have followed its directions to the restaurant today, trusting that it would lead me safely and accurately to my destination. So my question is, In what or whom do you place your trust to guide you through the veil of confusion we blithely call Life? The answer should be obvious to believers, but I wonder how true it really is in our everyday lives. Do we rely on Him to guide us to work each day? To complete our tasks correctly and in timely fashion? To direct our interactions with friends, co-workers, beloveds, and the guy at the gas station?

Because I know I’m tempted to just turn to Him when the visibility dips below my range of vision. For simple things like running errands or looking for books in the library, I don’t involve Him because I don’t really need His intervention, do I? I mean, I’m a semi-functional adult, capable of balancing a checkbook (in theory), buying stamps at the post office, and sending emails to my sister Down Under without bugging Him, right? Why should the God of the universe be bothered with whether I should buy a book online or at a store?

But I don’t get to make the call on what things I need Jesus for and what things I don’t. First, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THINGS I DON’T NEED HIM FOR!! Right? If He is my life, then He is my ENTIRE life. Not just the spiritual parts of it, not just the relationships and the struggles with sin. He’s supposed to be in everything. Jesus, when He walked on earth, didn’t separate His ministry from His everyday life. Even when He was a kid, He thought deeply about the things of God, He walked with His Father. And He is the template, the example we are to emulate, remembering that we don’t emulate Him by our own strength and diligence, but emulate His complete dependence upon His Father, in all things. He alone can guide us through the fog, just like someone looking down upon a maze can guide someone in the maze to the center.

The fog, then, is our opportunity to recognize our plight, that we need to be en garde, our senses alert, recognizing the potential for danger and pitfalls, as well as acknowledging our complete and utter dependence upon His direction in our lives. 

Bet you didn’t know fog had so many applications, did you?