I had to make a 6:30 A.M. flight. My dear wife was the lucky one who got to drive me to the airport. As I staggered to the car about 5:00 in the morning, I said, "Where's the sun?" Obviously, the sun was on a later flight that morning. But what made the drive really challenging was not the absence of sun, it was the presence of fog. I'm talking thick fog all the way to the airport. Our visibility was really limited. The traffic reporter on our news station said that it would be difficult even driving roads you knew like the back of your hand. And believe me, the road to the airport is one we knew all too well. As we traveled toward the turnpike exit that leads to the airport, the fog got really thick and disorienting. We were in the right lane with almost no sense of exactly where we were, when suddenly we saw the sign - "Turnpike." That was our turn, but we were practically right on it when we realized where we were. So, my wife turned just in time, and I even made my plane. As we got on that ramp, she said, "It's a good thing I didn't trust my instincts. It just didn't feel like we were at the point we were." She only had a second to decide whether to trust her instincts or the sign. I'm glad she trusted the sign.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Clear Direction in a Thick Fog."
Our word for today from the Word of God - Isaiah 50:10-11. "Let him who walks in the dark (or drives in the fog), who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God." See, when you can't see where you're going, trust the Lord; go the way He's been pointing you to go, proceed on what God has said to you.
But some people unfortunately respond to the fog by trying to figure out their own way to go. Well, the next verse covers that: "But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and the torches you have set ablaze." Then God says, "If you want to follow your feelings, you want to follow your instincts instead of the direction I'm pointing you in," well here's the result of doing it your way. He says, "This is what you shall receive from My hand. You will lie down in torment." Ouch!
You may be going through a time right now where the fog is thick, it's dark, it's disorienting, it's confusing. In times like these, it's tempting to suddenly grab the steering wheel of your life to try to make some things happen - to get control of things. And it's in those times that we tend to make some of the biggest mistakes of our life. We can't wait for the Lord, we can't trust what His Word has told us, and we start figuring it out our own way. Which, like our instincts on that foggy morning, will take us the wrong way and maybe cost us the destination we were aiming for.
But on that foggy morning, there was a sign, and it was pointing us in the right direction. It didn't feel right. It went against our instincts, but it was right and our feelings were wrong. Because we trusted the sign, we made it. That's what God is trying to get you to do during this dark, this uncertain time. Trust Him! Trust the direction He's already pointed you in.
He's made promises that you've got to hang onto now, even when because of the fog you can't see them working. So claim the promises He gave you when it was light. Refuse the compromises, the shortcuts that seem so tempting right now. Don't trust your roller coaster emotions which have lied to you again and again, led you into mistakes so many times before.
In the words of a great old saint, "Don't doubt in the darkness what God has told you in the light." His Word, His calling, His promise have not changed even though it's gotten dark, my friend. God's great plan is still at work, He's still right on time. Don't panic and don't take a detour from His best.
In that heavy fog, we got where we needed to go by trusting the sign, not our feelings. That's how you're going to come out of the fog at the place you need to be, by distrusting what your feelings are saying and trusting the clear direction of what your God says.