Following God's road

By Mia Pohlman

I really like to drive, but I don't like driving in the dark. I never can see as well as I can in the daytime, and the way curves in the road seem to appear out of nowhere in the dark often scares me. Not very many situations cause me to feel tense, but when driving in the dark, I usually find myself gripping the steering wheel tightly and not breathing as often as I should.

Recently I visited my friend in Omaha, Nebraska. I left a little later than I'd planned, forgetting it gets dark earlier now, not even thinking about the incredibly hilly and curvy road I had to take at the end of my drive. And so, around 6:15 p.m., with the sun already set, I found myself in for an hourlong drive in the dark on a road comprised mostly of steep hills and a couple of 90-degree curves.

This night was incredibly dark -- it had been overcast all day, so the moon couldn't be seen, and there were no streetlights, since it was a road through the countryside. The first thing I realized I had to do was slow down.

Driving what others prescribed as the speed limit was going to do nothing but harm me in the dark conditions.

Even though I'd driven the speed limit in the daylight, which was what others said was OK to do, now I needed to slow down substantially and be fully present in the moment, to focus on each part of what I was doing in order to stay on the road.

Sometimes there were road signs directing me in the direction of the next bend or warning me of especially difficult areas of navigation, and sometimes there weren't.

I found while it was sometimes good to glance ahead to get a general vision, the road was most often too hilly or curvy to look much past the shape of the yellow and white lines right in front of me.

If I trusted the shape of the way they curved one curve at a time, I could stay on the road. It was when I briefly tried to look too far ahead that the road disappeared and I felt afraid.

Sometimes there were other cars meeting or passing me, reassurance I was headed toward something.

Sometimes there were other cars driving ahead of me, leading the way with their taillights, reassuring me I was doing the right thing. Sometimes I was all alone, the only car on the road.

All the while, it was the thought of my destination that kept pressing me on.

With each hill and each curve successfully navigated, I was one hill or one curve closer to the safety of my home, to that light, comfort and relief of being in a place where I don't have to worry about danger, a place where I belong.

"I am the way," Jesus says in John 14:6.

Driving this road in the dark reminded me of that. In life, God knows -- and is -- the road and leads us over each hill, around each bend.

He is always present in us, with us, through us, asking us to trust in him.