Where will it All End?

It happened that I was driving quite slowly in the outside lane, with nothing in the nearside lane.  I pulled over to see what was holding things up and discovered that, a short way ahead, was a small car trying to overtake something only marginally slower than itself.  At the time, I was listening to a sermon podcast in which the preacher  questioned how Joseph might have felt when the angel told him to get up in the night, pack up and flee to Egypt (Matt. 2:13).  As we know, he obediently did as he was bid, but did he wonder whether he’d bitten off more than he could chew?  He’d taken Mary as his wife, become the step-father of God’s Son and known the adulation of these rich foreigners ... but now the Child was under a death threat: a danger against which he was powerless!

I related what I was hearing to what I could see on the road in front of me.  Had the driver of the small car the same misgivings of Joseph?  Did he now wonder whether he’d bitten off more than he could chew?  Had he made a mistake when he estimated the speed of the vehicle he was trying to overtake?  Would he make it, or would he have to pull back in an admission of failure?

The preacher seemed to be leading towards Jesus’ own possible thoughts years later, as He faced the opposition of the Pharisees to His ministry, and suffered the declining experiences of betrayal and arrest, desertion by His friends and not one but three trials, before torture and a painful execution.  However, the sermon actually focussed on an apparent contradiction, when Jesus said to His disciples, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.”  (John 16:33).  The speaker refrained from singing, as he quoted the Fred Astaire song, “There may be troubles ahead ...”

I recalled some wise words that had been given to me by my Rector many years ago, when I was going through one of life’s many distressing phases.  Basically his advice amounted to this.  “It may be tough for you at the moment, but one day you will look back on this time and, as a result of what you’re going through now, you will be able to help others as they suffer in the same way.”  Only weeks ago, I found myself in just such a situation.  I was able to share my experiences with a friend in need, and pray with him as he now trod the same path that I once had.  Those wise words had proved true for me.

A popular hymn begins, “I do not know what lies ahead, the way I cannot see; yet One stands near to be my guide, He’ll show the way to me.”  We do well to remember these thoughts when we pass through times of uncertainty; that our Lord guaranteed that, through His Holy Spirit, He would be with us always.