Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:14)

 White, blowing mist. It’s all I can see. White flakes of snow swirling before me, behind me,beside me. Then two dimmed lights peer at me on the other side of the road, moving through the mist. Blurred back lights are suddenly in front of me from the car ahead in the whiteout. Slow down. Take the drive more cautiously. Hold onto the wheel tightly. I don’t know what is ahead, and it’s even hard to discern what is behind or at my side. I stop to clear my windshield wipers and try to catch the swirling snowflakes within my hand, but they cannot be captured, vanishing quickly beyond my grasp.

Life. The mist we abide in. The mist that we are. Here, we see dimly.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (I Corinthians 3:12)

 Along this road we travel called life, we cannot see what is ahead. Our side vision may be distorted from different outside influences as well as inside perspectives. Behind us, our memories may be dimmed or lost in a haze of what we thought was there versus what the reality really was at the time. We keep driving down the road, trying to map out our journey with predictions of the turns ahead, the places to avoid, the places to stay a while, the time to pick up and leave again to face the mist ahead where we cannot discern our path clearly, unable to grasp the swirling flakes and hold onto them. Life cannot be held in time. We are unable to fast forward one hour or fall back another hour as we do with man-made timepieces. The road we travel on in life is ahead, and we are on it.

But maybe we have forgotten Who is really driving. God knows the path through our mist. His vision is clear. Are we looking for answers from a GPS global positioning system from man or from God’s providential steering? He is the only dependable guidance through a life that is unsure and not visibly clear, where danger and uncertainty are ahead on the road, hidden by curves, detours, obstacles, the unseen.

White, blowing mist. It’s all we can see in this life when we try to travel alone and hold tightly onto the wheel to control our own course. We must give God the steering wheel and trust in His direction on this life path that we travel for but a little while. We see dimly, unsure but seeking that final stop on our life road, as our own time slips away, and we become the mist in a form that can no longer hold us here.

God’s providential steering is through Christ. We can only end where we began on our life journey if we travel with Him. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

Our life on this earthly road is temporary, and our journey is only meaningful and purposeful when we release our grip on the wheel to God. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8) From the beginning to the end of our life, God’s providential steering is the only guidance system we need to direct us and bring us home.

(Sharon G. Tate blog 03/10/19) teacherforjesus.com Meditations on God’s Word