Day 1:
As I step into the unknown I have an infallible Guide
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them (Isaiah 42:16).
Years later, I came to understand the fear that drove her to shake me so relentlessly, so mercilessly so...unendingly. All I felt then was a profound embarrassment as the words erupted, each punctuated by a vigorous shake: “He-skipped–you-skipped-too!”
It was summer holiday, and, as always we were spending several glorious weeks with our grandmother “in town”. That morning, Granny needed an ingredient for the midday meal. My two older sisters had gone off somewhere, and I was the only one left to be dispatched on this errand of no mean significance—Granny fed multitudes of four or five thousand each midday.
The small supermarket was only a short distance away, but I would have to cross the street to get there. I would rather die than admit my profound terror of crossing the street, and risk being called a “country-boukki.” But the truth was, my street crossing skills were hopelessly “country-boukki”—we lived in the farthest corner of the most rural of villages, and the unpaved stretch of road leading to our house seldom saw traffic.
So even though, relatively speaking, traffic in those days was light on the main street where my grandmother lived, I was unskilled at navigating any traffic at all. I had trouble gauging speed, and space, and distance, and crossing streets created major anxiety in me.
So I hovered at the corner, looking right, then left, then right again, as I had been taught, but there seemed no end to the stream of cars. And then, in one split second, a slight movement brought promise to my darting eyes. There he was, suddenly, a confident city-street-crosser sprinting across the impossible chasm I had been desperately trying to navigate as the clock ticked and tocked closer to noon.
And there I was, only a half a step behind him, when the loud protests of brakes squealed my narrow escape to the listening world, and to the police officer emerging from the adjacent side street. It took only seconds for her to reach me, by which time my accidental guide had disappeared into the alley, leaving me to face a merciless, fear-fueled reprimand.
Sadly, it was not the last time in my life I faced the consequences of following the wrong lead. But each hard-earned lesson has helped me understand the importance of trustworthy guidance, and wise pursuit, and courageous divergence.
Life seems much more complicated now than it was all those many years ago on a fairly quiet street in a sleepy capital town. Today, we have much more "traffic" to navigate, and many more "streets" to cross. They yawn like chasms before us, and the pace is fast, furious, and anxiety-inducing. We yearn for a safe guide to follow.
Yet in trying to escape the peril of navigating on our own, the last thing we want to do is to follow a guide who will place us in even greater danger. Jesus had this to say about "blind guides": "If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14).
In our technology-driven interactions today, so much emphasis is placed on "following" and being "followed." And sadly, the danger, and peril are real on many levels, especially for the children and the young among us (although the older are not exempt)! Blind guides abound. And the pits are everywhere.
But we can find reassurance in the words of a God who promised His people so many centuries ago, "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them..."
I for one, am grateful that as we step forward into a new year, we can count on a God who goes before us, to light the way into the unknown. That makes all the difference.
I have become a little better at crossing streets, but I must confess I have never truly outgrown my anxiety. Yet, I step forward with confidence in my infallible Guide who has promised, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21).
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
~ Robert Frost ~ The Road Not Taken
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