When Few Things Are Certain

The clouds have been gray and heavy this week. It’s a blessing after weeks of 100-degree and 90-degree weather in a sea of asphalt. Weather has always fascinated me. It’s one of those things in life that we have little direct control over. It comes. It goes. It radically reshapes life in a moment.

My life feels just as uncertain sometimes these days. I know I have two hands to help people. I know I’m trying to act wisely to serve people. But I can’t predict how the lives of these people that I talk to each day will change. I have great, tested faith that my writing produces change a world away a year at a time. But even that requires a good measure of faith in God that good will result from our most diligent efforts.

It reminds me of friends I wrote about today. In the southern reaches of their country, they currently are far from the war and fighting that tore their lives apart for decades. But in 3 short years, they know that the fighting will very likely return. The temporary peace will shatter. When? How? Few are certain.

What wisdom does a man in that community have to share with me at this time in life? What insight does a life full of few certainties but dread have for me? Some days I wish I could ask. Till then, God provides and I receive the crumbs from a master’s table that sustain a life full of blessing.