Seeing the Shore

I recently read a story out of Randy Alcorn's book, Heaven.

In 1952, young Florence Chadwick stepped into the waters of the Pacific Ocean off Catalina Island, determined to swim to the shore of mainland California.  She'd already been the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways.  The weather was foggy and chilly; she could hardly see the boats accompanying her.  Still, she swam for fifteen hours.  When she begged to be taken out of the water along the way, her mother, in a boat alongside her, told her she was close and that she could make it.  Finally, physically and emotionally exhausted, she stopped swimming and was pulled out.  It wasn't until she was on the boat that she discovered the shore was less than a half a mile away.  At a news conference the next day she said, "All I could see was the fog.  I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it."


"All I could see was the fog.  I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it."

My mind immediately trotted off to Scripture found in Habakkuk 2:1 - 4.

"I will climb up into my watchtower now and wait to see what the Lord will say to me and how he will answer my complaint.  Then the Lord said to me, 'Write my answer in large, clear letters on a tablet so that a runner can read it and tell everyone else.  But these things I plan won't happen right away.  Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled.  If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place.  It will not be delayed.'"

Sometimes we can physically climb up into a watchtower, above our circumstances.  Sometimes it's a matter of trusting the One who is guiding us, that the shore is near,  because let's be honest, we don't always have the luxury of seeing the shore.

My favorite part of the story of Habakkuk is that it was only four verses in (or better yet, only four complaints in) that God stopped Habakkuk in verse 5 and said, "Watch and be astounded at what I will do!  For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn't believe even if someone told you about it."

There's a lot of fog in my life.  A lot of fog in the lives around me.  But as Spring begins to join us, I am reminded that "there is a season for everything."  And the fog will clear.