Seeing around corners …

Don’t you wish you could see around corners?

At least, the corners of your life?

That’s where the danger is, in the unknown of what lies around the corner. If only we knew what was “just around the corner” we could make wiser decisions and plan better.

But the challenge in living — and the risk — is that we cannot see around corners.

Corners are all the more dangerous for police officers and those serving in the military. It’s often just around a corner that a real enemy lurks, waiting for an opportunity to kill or otherwise maim and harm. For decades now, governments and businesses have collaborated on ways to overcome this danger of engaging corners. The outcome has been the invention of various weapons that not only can “see” around a corner but can shoot around corners as well.

This trepidation about facing corners is very real, bringing us face-to-face with our limitations as human beings by highlighting how little we really do see and know. Sergio Arevalo tells of the struggle of “facing a corner” in the life of one famous Christian …

The late theologian/philosopher, Francis Schaeffer, whose life and books have impacted thousands for Christ, was raised in a non-Christian home. After he became a Christian, his father did not want him to go to college and did not want him to become a minister, which young Francis felt called to be.

When the moment finally came where he had to make the decision to go with what he thought God wanted or to submit to his father’s wishes, Francis asked in a strained voice, “Pop, give me a few minutes to go down in the cellar and pray.”

In fear and uncertainty, he went down there and wept hot tears of sorrow for his father. Then, in an act of desperate and simple faith, he did something that he would never advise anyone else to do, but what he felt was right for him at the time: he prayed, “Oh, God, please show me.”

Then he took out a coin and said, “Heads, I’ll go in spite of dad’s desires.” It was heads. Still weeping, he cried out, “God, be patient with me. If it’s tails this time, I’ll go.” Tails.

The third time he pleaded, “Once, more, God. I don’t want to make a mistake with Dad upstairs. Please now, let it be heads again.” It was heads.

So he went upstairs and told his dad that he had to go. His dad looked hard at him, then went out to slam the door. But just before the door hit the frame, his voice came through, “I’ll pay for the first half year.” It was many years later that Francis’ dad became a Christian, but Francis thinks that this moment was the basis of his salvation, when Francis in effect declared, “I must follow the Lord.”

Although we cannot see around corners to what lurks ahead, God can. Our Creator, who commands us to surrender the entirety of our lives to Him, can do more than see around corners, He sees and knows everything!

“How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!” Psalm 147:5.

“Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything,” 1 John 3:20.

“Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen,” Romans 11:33-36.

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable,” Hebrews 4:13.

God knows all and sees all, and instructs us — who can’t even see around corners — to trust Him with our lives and our eternity:

“The Lord says, ‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you,'” Psalm 32:8.

There is no risk in trusting an all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful God. There are costs, but not “risks” because …

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them,” Romans 8:28.

We can spend our lives wringing our hands with anxiety over what lies around the corners that come up every day in our lives, or we can trust our omniscient and omnipotent God to lead us with His perfect wisdom and endless love for us.

What choice are you living out?

Scotty