Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“The Lord is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid?
The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?…
For he will conceal me there when troubles come; he will hide me in his sanctuary.
He will place me out of reach on a high rock…
Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous.
Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”
Psalm 27: 1, 5, 14 (NLT)
So let’s see—what is in front of you today?
Experience any “white outs” yet today?
Here we are together—beginning yet another day, another week. And if we’re honest with each other and ourselves, we might remember that when our feet hit the floor this morning, there was a bit of anxiety in our hearts mixed in with another day of expectations of things we had planned and didn’t plan, but which may occur anyway.
So, again, what’s in front of you today? There is a part of us that believes we would like to know, regardless of what is before us, how it will come out. Maybe we have a game tonight we’re playing in or coaching. Maybe we have a manuscript, paper or a project that is due. Perhaps it’s some family stuff that we don’t know how to wend our way through.
Maybe it’s a set of expectations which you have placed upon yourself, or that you are feeling pressure about from the expectations you have allowed others to hang over you. Some of us might still be carrying a recent disappointment that we can’t let go of, learn from and just move on. Maybe there are some things you need to deal with—things you need to change, decisions you need to make. We find ourselves in the midst of uncertain times, not at all sure about what is coming around the bend.
But here’s the reality of what is in front of you and me today. We may see some of it, but remembering past experiences, there is much we don’t see and don’t expect, which will probably hit us full in the face with often blinding and unexpected certainty.
Then what?
I remember a few years ago when I was invited to Halifax, Nova Scotia by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to speak at a number of gatherings of Pastors, as well as business, political and community leaders, in preparation for a Festival they were conducting three months later. When I landed in Halifax I was greeted by 20 degree temperatures and four feet of new snow. Having been raised for part of my childhood in New England, including upstate New York, I was familiar with and used to the snow. What I wasn’t at all familiar with, and couldn’t imagine getting used to, was something the folks there called “white outs.”
My first of many experiences with “white outs” occurred this way. That part of Canada I was visiting is comprised of a number of land masses and large islands, such as Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton Island, connected by roadways across bridges and long stretches of land-formed causeways. The car we were in—where I was simply a trusting passenger being shuttled from one speaking engagement to another—was often traveling on a roadway running between some of those islands, with frozen bodies of water on one side or the other. The roadways and frozen seas were covered with the newly-fallen powdery snow, as had occurred just before I landed.
And here’s where it gets interesting. The wind begins to blow without warning, gusting up to forty or fifty miles an hour across wide-open spaces. The next thing you know, the snow has been blown up and off the frozen sea, into the air completely covering the car, the windshield and your field of vision. In the space of a few seconds, you go from clear visibility, driving at seventy miles an hour, to a complete “white out,” with no visibility whatsoever. Total darkness.
Scary.
Sounds like some of our days, doesn’t it?
So how do we deal with those moments of “white outs” we have in our lives? Those moments when not only do we not know which way to go, but we can’t see our options which may lie ahead of us. Where we are flying along making mighty good time and all of a sudden the pathway before us is gone. Or perhaps we have already experienced a “white out” and have been stopped dead in our tracks on the causeway (as the drivers did in our real-life experiences in Canada) and we can’t see the way ahead of us out of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
It’s then that we need to go back and claim the promises one of the greatest Psalms of encouragement. It was written by one who experienced many “white outs” and moments of darkness in his life, often caused by his own failings and shortcomings. In the midst of whatever he found himself in, David could say—
The Lord is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid?…
For he will conceal me there when troubles come;
He will place me out of reach on a high rock… [and so I will]
Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous.
Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”
Do you find yourself in the midst of any “white outs?” Or know that, like the rest of us, you will find yourself in the midst of one sometime ahead?
Remember at those times, and always, that promise that—
“The Lord is my light and salvation—so why should I be afraid…
Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”
Claim that promise today and always!
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2013. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
