The Fog

I left home at 17 to attend Azusa Pacific University in Azusa California, about 90 miles from home. Trips home were usually bi-weekly. I worked with my dad in Youth For Christ which necessitated frequent trips. Mom was a better cook than the cafeteria and did laundry which explains the rest. (gas was about .33 cents a gallon and my care got about 25 mpg so it was cheaper to go home for the weekend than to buy food at school) The trip was mostly back roads and the Cajon Pass which rarely had snow, but frequently had fog. I remember coming back to school one night in what the English call a “pea-souper”. The fog was so thick I could scarcely see more than a few feet in front of me. (Fog there was kind of weird. In the first floor of the dorm it would be so thick you could not see out the window. On the second floor it was bright sunshine.) Early on I discovered how to drive in the fog. The 18 wheelers sat above the thickest part of the and would just cruise through. I would just tuck in behind an 18 wheeler and go, following his lights. That worked well on the freeway but I remember one night the fog was so thick on Foothill Blvd I could not see the color of the lights in the intersection until I was mid way through the intersection. This was a white-knuckle drive for about 20 miles. Somewhere along the line a police cruiser pulled ahead of me and frankly I was scarred enough not to care if I got a ticket for tailgating a cruiser. I tucked in behind him at less than a car length, any further back and I could not see his lights. Maybe he saw I was young, maybe he was just merciful or more likely he knew it was a bigger risk of a wreck to pull over to give me a ticket. I traveled the rest of the way reassuring myself I could tell the judge because of the fog I ran the same red light the police did.
From time to time I find myself in a spiritual fog, sometimes of my own making, sometimes it is just there. Those can be white-knuckle times too. Fear, anxiety and worry grip my heart with fists of steel. If it lasts very long my heart grows numb and cold from the loss of blood. There is only one thing I can do to get through until the fog clears. Follow the light closer. What light? The light of His word. The illumination of the Spirit that comes in prayer. The light of a guide who can see better than I. I do not have to live life paralyzed to numbness in a spiritual fog.