A few nights ago, I went out for a run. It had been a particularly hard day and I needed time to think, pray, and just get it out. So I skipped dinner, laced up my shoes and hit the street. If you’re a mom, wife, employee, friend—or just breathing, you know days like this happen on occasion. It’s the way life goes sometimes.

Life can be hard. Our kids don’t want to walk with the Lord. The test results weren’t what we hoped for. That job didn’t come through. Someone else got the recognition. A difficult conversation is weighing you down. Someone spoke harshly.

Sometimes we’re just plain in a funk. We can’t see the end result. We just have to trust that God will work it out, whatever “it” is. We have to believe He will use it for good. That He will grow us (and others) in the process and that He will even be glorified. But we can’t see the end. We don’t even know how far away it is or how long it will take. We only see what’s right in front of us and it’s hard.

For me, a good run changes my perspective. It helps me refocus and, quite honestly, I come home too tired to care about the little things. Don’t get me wrong—I care. I just care a little less . . . perhaps. Whatever is bothering me no longer does . . . as much. After a long run, I come home more understanding, more patient, more . . . hungry! And way more tired.

In my house, everyone is happy when mom goes for a run.

We live near a set of train tracks. As I approached those tracks the other night, I noticed a sign at the crossing: Limited Sight Distance. It got me thinking. The sight distance is the amount of roadway that’s visible to a driver—and it is limited. You can only see what’s right in front of you. You can’t see far. You can’t see around the bend. You have limited visibility down the tracks, so be cautious.

As I ran, I let my mind meditate on this. Isn’t that just like the Lord to give us limited sight distance? He doesn’t give us the whole picture. He doesn’t want us to know exactly how it will turn out. Or how long it will take. Because if we knew we wouldn’t walk by faith. We wouldn’t have to depend on Him. We wouldn’t be desperate to pray and plead and beg. We wouldn’t have to trust Him. We would go on our way, knowing the outcome.

But friends, shouldn’t we do that anyway? Shouldn’t we pray and trust and believe Him and walk in faith and live in hope? Shouldn’t we move forward, knowing the outcome even if we can’t see the specifics?

He will work it out. He will use it for good. He will be glorified.

As you go through a season of hard, know that He has allowed you limited sight distance. He has allowed the hard. And the long. And the things that don’t make sense to us. So we will walk by faith. So we will hold onto His promises with hope. So we will trust Him, even when we can’t see.

When I came home from that run, the mind-consuming worries I’d been carrying all day weren’t quite so burdensome. I realized that, not only has He allowed these things, He has given me limited sight distance. Why? So I will draw near to Him.

During that run God rejuvenated me with a better perspective. And once I ate my In-n-Out burger (because duh, running burns calories) nothing but sleep and resting in His promises mattered.

 

Our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. – 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NLT)