And I will lead the blind

    in a way that they do not know

in paths that they have not known

    I will guide them.

I will turn the darkness before them into light

    the rough places into level ground.

These are the things I do

    and I do not forsake them.

Isaiah 42:16

Meditating on this verse this morning, I didn’t get beyond the third line.

“The darkness before them.”

How many times particularly on this journey of the past eight years has the path in front of me been enshrouded in blackness.  I’d look ahead and could see nothing. Only the dark.

Yet, I was given light for the next step.

The darkness before me was turned into light.

Once we were driving on a highway ramp way above the swampy Charleston terrain.  As the grade of the road steepened it felt like we were about to launch into space.  Then the street up ahead disappeared.  Logic said it was a curve. My feelings said if we continued driving we would fly off the road.

I felt the Lord say, “You do not know what’s around the bend, but I do.” 

Much of life is curves in the road.

Today, I know there’s some big changes up ahead.  The unknown.  The scary.  Even though I cannot see the way forward, it does not feel totally dark because the Lord really does turn the darkness before us into light.

He dawns on them like the morning light

like the sun shining forth…  

II Samuel 23:4

For You are my lamp

O Lord, and my God lightens my darkness.

Psalm 18:28

…for darkness is as light with You.

Psalm 139:12