edge of the precipice…

The hillside path which they were following became narrower all the time and the drop on their right hand became steeper. At last they were going in single file along the edge of the precipice and Shasta shuddered to think that he had done the same last night without knowing it. “But of course,” he thought, “I was quite safe. That is why the Lion kept on my left. He was between me and the edge all the time.”

In this scene from C.S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy, Shasta, the main character and the others are walking along the edge of a cliff, when he looks down, he shudders at the thought that the night before he had done the same path in the dark, without realizing that there was a huge drop off to his side. He is comforted in the thought that the Lion kept to his left to protect him from falling. When I read this passage and visualize this scene, I am almost brought to tears. In my life, I have been on the edge of a precipice, trotting along, without realizing that I was never walking alone. I thank God that he knows when we are on the edge and decides to stay and walk with us.

This scene reminds me of God’s love in my life in two ways. The first being the obvious: that he never leaves nor forsakes us. That he is always with us, even when we are inches from the precipice, the edge, the drop-off of falling into complete despair, recklessness, or desperation. God is always there. Like the Lion in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, our God shows up right and when we need him. The second truth that I gather from this scene is that what is done in the dark will always come out in the light. Shasta had been on the same exact path the night before. He had taken the same steps, endured the same journey, but it is revealed that he had to cover his tracks again during the day and in the light.

My nights on the precipice are just now beginning to unfold in the light. The nights on the edge and the clinging to a little bit of rope and hanging on. God was there on those nights, and he shows me every day now in the light that he never left me, he still loves me, and I am safe with him next to me.

In difficult times, I know I want to I think I am alone and by myself, but when the day dawns, I realize, like Shasta, that He was always there between me and the precipice.

Thank you God for standing between me and the edge all the time.

Advertisement

Where is God sometimes?

It was an early May day, but the temperature in Nashville was already in the mid-90s. It was the sticky, sweltering type of heat that makes it not only difficult to breath, but every task is intensified by the mighty rays of the sun. I was sitting in my car at a local park in between errands for that day. Although I was parked in the shade, I could feel the sauna that was right outside my car. As I sat in the car, I began to feel tears swelling in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry in that moment, I wanted to feel the warmth of the sun and be reminded of God’s love and presence. However, in that moment, all I could do was cry. I don’t know how long I sat in that car with tears streaming down my face, and sweat dripping from my forehead, but after a short while, I was distracted from my tears by a buzz of my cell phone.

It’s weird that I would ask where God is sometimes, when I know he is everywhere at all times. But sometimes I think we just have to be reminded that he is with us and cares for us. When I picked up the phone and wiped the tears from my eyes that were blurring my vision, I noticed a text from a friend that simply said, “Are you okay today?” I don’t know how she knew to text me or that I was sitting in a hot car crying in isolation, but that text message reminded me of God’s love in my life, and how he sends people to us in our most desperate situations. Later that afternoon, as I was walking to class, I looked at the big, bright, beautiful sun, and I knew God was there. I felt him in the warmth of the spring air. I saw him in the blinding rays of the sun. I sensed him in the humidity that clinged to my skin. I met God that day and he told me that he is with me always. For me, that message came from the largest celestial body in the solar system. For others, it can come in all kinds of different forms and ways.

At hard times, I think it is easy to forget that God has a plan for our lives and to trust his plan, but when we surrender to his good and perfect will, that’s when his love and grace is illuminated in our lives like the beauty of the sun on a hot May day.

Be blessed and live in the name of christ…

Stop looking down during stressing times and look up and find the “sun”, the light, and the way.