shot into the dark...

It's scary going into the unknown.  We just took a step in our lives that led us away from a more certain future.  It is scary.  But, it appears to be directed.

"If we desire our faith to be strengthened, we should not shrink from opportunities where our faith may be tried, and therefore, through trial, be strengthened."

-George Mueller

We went to Disney this past weekend and got to see our kids take a venture into the unknown.  Our two boys from China had never even seen a roller coaster, much less been on a roller coaster.  So what did Bethany and I do to gently and slowly introduce the concept of roller coasters into our boys lives?  We took them on Rockin' Rollercoaster!

 

If you've never been on this ride, it starts out shooting riders into a dark corridor at 60 mph and then promptly into a loop, through twists and turns, finished by a couple of corkscrews.  

To the inexperienced rider, it is intimidating to say the least.  

The only part of the ride the boys could see from the waiting line was the riders being shot into the dark....screaming....that's it!!

You don't get to see the excited, but relieved faces come out on the other side.  You only get to see the fearful expressions as they are shot into the darkness.

I couldn't help but continually laugh as I sat behind the boys, because I knew the direction of the ride, even if the boys didn't.  I knew how long the ride would last.  I have ridden this ride so I knew where the twists and turns were. I even found myself turning into some of the bends and rolls as I knew what was ahead.  But the boys had no idea. They were completely safe and protected the entire time, they just didn't know it.

Abraham was shot into the darkness as well, wasn't he?  He didn't know the outcome, did he? He barely knew the God that shot him into the unknown!  

But he obeyed and it was counted to him as righteousness.  

Sometimes, things just don't make sense.  Sometimes we are directed to build football field size boats on land or spend the rest of your life in an unknown land.  Sometimes we are directed to take the coin from the fish or be swallowed by a fish.  Whatever the direction though, it appears that the more odd, the more sense it simply doesn't make, and the more off the wall the direction, the more and more it seems that God is truly the one at the helm of the direction.  

So shooting into the dark we go.  Now, if we just had some Aerosmith music...

"Blessed is the man who doesn’t know! Abraham even moved house ‘not knowing whither’. When we really understand that God is the Originator of all that matters in life, we no longer have such cocksureness about what we are going to do. We gladly say, ‘If the Lord wills.”

-Watchman Nee, -Changed Into His Likeness