Through a Glass Darkly

From my back porch it’s a straight, steep drop to a river below that flows down from a dam where the remnants of an old mill stand. The stream cuts a hairpin turn through two foothills, making it a mist machine when its sun-warmed water meets the cool evening air that settles down low in the pass. At night I can sit and watch fireflies emerge from a thick blanket of steam like a thousand distant lighthouses piercing a New England fog.

On the partly cloudy days that mark the beginning of the rainy summer season, dark and bright patches alternately roll slowly over the hill across the way, eventually down to those on the river.

Sometimes the shadows rule the day, stepping aside just briefly every so often to allow brilliance to reach the landscape. When those few beams finally creep across the panorama facing my elevated perch it’s like witnessing the Creation, as the light paints everything in its path, bringing it to life. If Thomas Kinkade worked in moving pictures, this would be his inspiration.

Watching this scene develop from such a perspective you quickly realize that depending on where someone is standing below they might not see that the light is all around them. You also realize that the light headed their way from behind the hills that obscure their view is going to reach them, and no force in the universe can stop it — they just don’t see it yet.

Foreknowledge is a tricky thing, similar in some aspects to the family summer vacation. A 7-year-old has no genuine grip on how long it takes to drive to Michigan, evidenced by the droning “Are we there yet?” while you’re still in south Georgia. If you were to tell them, their soul would shrivel no matter the number of Mad Libs or rounds of license plate bingo at their disposal. It’s just best for everyone that they don’t know.

But an endless, wearying trip with no seeming destination in sight leads to despair. At some point we must have a resolution, a rescue, a ray of light to shine in our valley. We at least need to know that God IS working, even if we don’t see how or where. And like those passing clouds, sometimes the light is all around us — He just hasn't revealed it yet.

The prophet Elisha found himself on the Syrian king's hit list. A vast army was sent to surround the city of the man of God, and his servant, seeing the hopelessness of the situation, prepared to cash in his chips ... "What are we going to do?"

"Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them," the prophet answered (II Kings 6:16). He prayed that God would give his servant a glimpse of 'reality,' at which point the young man suddenly saw a mountain full of horses and flaming chariots prepared to do battle on their behalf. They were there all the time.

Daniel had been mourning and fasting for three weeks, waiting for an anticipated revelation of God for the future of His people. "The appointed time was long," he says (Daniel 10:1). Standing by the Tigris River, he was finally met by the angel who was sent to give the vision.

"Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days, and Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia (Daniel 10:12, 13).

Surely, Daniel derived great comfort from the fact that his righteousness and longsuffering wasn't for nothing. Though the angel was under no obligation to explain the delay, he did: "Sorry, got caught in traffic ... but I was on my way the minute you called."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Nobel Prize-winning author who became a Christian during one of his many imprisonments in the former Soviet Union, recounted the story of his last few days in a secret work camp for political exiles. He had been consigned to spend the balance of his short life in soul-crushing labor, forced to contain his world-class thoughts in isolation and silence under the constant watch of armed soldiers. The prisoners were forbidden to have any contact with each other.

With no hope or strength left, Solzhenitsyn sought to end his suffering. But his Christian faith precluded him from taking his own life. He decided that he would let the prison guards do the deed for him by making a run for it. He knew they would drop him where he stood.

As Solzhenitsyn sat under a tree, preparing to rise to his feet for his final act of desperation, a lone figure approached and stood before him. It was another prisoner whom he had never seen before. Saying nothing, the man took a stick that was in his hand, traced a cross on the ground in front of Solzhenitsyn, then walked away. The act restored Solzhenitsyn's faith in a God who had a purpose for his life beyond what he could see. What he couldn't see was that the notoriety of his captivity would result in a groundswell of protest so strong it would result in his freedom — just three days after his intended suicide.

"I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the living." (Psalm 31:22)