My husband spends his days helping people to see clearly. So vision and clarity – in the natural and the spiritual – are things we talk about a lot.

Lately I’ve been especially aware that, even though we can’t see the future, much of our peace of mind and get-up-and-go is rooted in the delusion that we can. We have goals, dreams, plans and ideas and they give us something to run at, and that makes us feel useful, happy, alive.

With life being temporarily cancelled over the past few months, the stark truth of how little we know of what’s up ahead has been *real*.

So I’m thinking –

As you crest the midyear hill and head for who-knows-what – bravely looking ahead – facing forwards – barrelling on blind – mobilized by the momentum of these crazy times – maybe you could –

Stop for just a minute.

Pause to process.

And look back.

A friend of mine took these two photos, seconds apart, in Namaqualand a few years ago. She was standing in exactly the same spot: facing forwards (photo 1) – and then looking back (photo 2).

These flowers are born smart. They know to face the sunshine. And if you’re also facing the sunshine, you can’t see their full, fiery brilliance. You have to look back to see their splendour.

If you’ve got your eyes fixed on the path ahead – if you’re facing the Son for strength and putting one foot in front of the other to walk well through this season – then you might be struggling to see the point of it all.

You know you’re leaving in your wake months of ups and downs and life happening in fantastic, gruelling, disappointing or serendipitous ways, despite so much of life not happening. But the beauty of it – the faith that God will use all the things for His glory and your ultimate good – escapes you.

I pray there would be moments this week for you to catch your breath, and turn around for the view.

I pray God would give you 20/20 vision for 2020, so you’ll see the victories and convictions, and the spaciousness of His kind dealings with you and yours.

I pray you’d be reminded that God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power at work within us. He imagines from seed the bright miracles of petals and tall trees. And He imagined from eternity past the masterpiece of you, preparing the good paths He’s called you to walk.

Keep on keeping on.

Every now and then, look back.

[Adapted from the archives]

. . .

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, friend.

Please share the love by sharing this post with someone who needs perspective.

My novel Breathe Between the Lines releases in July 2020, God willing! Here’s a sneak peek of the blurb:

When a young woman is shot in an armed robbery, a book she leaves behind writes itself randomly into the lives of strangers and friends who breathe between the lines of a far greater story already written and, they realise, not random at all.

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