Driving in the Dark

One of the benefits of serving on the Lake Ann Camp Board is driving north four times a year, once each season. Fall has got to be one of the best. Michigan is a great state for fall color. Even now, where you sit, you can imagine the yellows and oranges mixed in with the evergreens. And that’s a bit of the problem. Most of it is only imagined. 

Lake Ann Board meetings typically begin at 9 a.m. So if you are trekking that direction in the early morning, most of the route is driving in the dark. Meetings typically end at 3:30 p.m. By the time you spend a bit more time talking with board members and staff members - often including dinner - it’s time to go home, again, driving mostly in the dark. If you didn’t know the color was there, then you wouldn’t know it was there. 

And so, yes, there is a little bit of color, at the tail end, or beginning of each leg of the journey; or looking out the window of the board room at the trees on the grounds; or walking from the Welcome Center to the Dining Hall for lunch. But you know there is so much more. 

I liken this to knowing God, and knowing God’s Word. It’s the awareness of God’s grand plan, and a personal relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ. It’s an appreciation of the protection and the provision that He gives each day. We know it’s there, and we catch glimpses, but we always want more. 

But it’s worse than that for others that we know and love. They don’t even know it’s there. They live their whole lives driving in the dark, unaware of God and His many graces. The Bible calls it ignorance, or blindness. The Bible says they are “lost.” They don’t see, because they can’t, until their eyes are opened. We can give information, but they need a relationship with God. They need an experience of His grace. 

Because our God is gracious and merciful, for many, in His time, the light goes on, and the sun comes up. We do our part, pointing out the colors of His grace from under the shadows, and sharing about Jesus. And since we believe and know that God does all the heavy lifting in the redemption of lost souls, we pray and ask that he would open our eyes, so that we can see wonderful truths that He has for us, and that others might see them as well.