Where are we headed?
For those of us who are at times as stupid as I know I can be it may be a hazardous experience to join a motorway. The crucial thing of course is to be sure that when you join you will be traveling in the right direction. In some regions to get this wrong will mean going many miles out of your way before you get to the next junction, where you can leave the motorway and return in the opposite, correct direction.
But there are times when there is no one right direction. I’ve enjoyed in times long gone by, before the days of thinking about your carbon emissions, playing the left/right game in the car with my family. This means taking the first turn to the left, the next possible turn to the right, then next left and so on, seeing where you end up after say ten minutes’ driving.
If then you are thinking of making a New Year’s resolution I suppose it’s a good idea first of all to think where you’re headed. At my age that has to include such things as if and when I may have to leave my home, be taken into professional care or die. So, taking the long view, I want to think what best route I should take to adapt myself for life beyond the grave. With this dimension in mind the troubles of my current life are pretty insignificant. I feel I know where I’m headed and that all will be well. I’ll try to do such things as best fit my ultimate aim. I’ll make sure I join the motorway in the right direction.
Having said all that there is another equally Christian way of looking at our destiny. It was memorably expressed by King George VI in a radio broadcast just before the first New Year’s Day of World War 2, when many people felt lost and fearful of what lay ahead. The King, quoting from a source unknown to me, said: I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light, that I may go forward into the unknown.” And he said: “Put your hand into the hand of God. That will be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.”
–Peter Graham
peter.graham[at]bucklandnewton[dot]com
