Into the Fog
By Anthony Casperson
5-8-21

It seemed a normal day, even if a bit cool for a May morning. But as I turned onto the last leg of my drive to work, I came upon a wall of fog. I don’t just mean it was a little foggy. No, it was one of those horror movie, someone-left-on-the-fog-machine-too-long kind of moments.

A gasp caught in my throat. A fleeting visceral reaction before my more intellectual mind kicked in, reminding me that it was just fog. There was nothing to be afraid of. I’ve been in fog before. And will be again. Sure, I needed to be careful because vision was limited, but it certainly wasn’t worth that fearful reaction.

Contemplating fog sent my mind back to a memory of my time early in bible college. Greek class specifically. The author of the textbook began his work by speaking of “the fog.”

By this, he referred to the feeling people often get when beginning to learn a new language. At first, it seems scary. All of this grammar and these vocabulary words are so foreign. It doesn’t make sense. And you feel lost in a blinding sea.

However, as you continue on, you’ll eventually come to understand these pieces that made no sense before. The fog will lift. (Hopefully.) But that isn’t the end of the journey because new grammatical rules and even more strange vocabulary words are around the next bend.

And you need to be willing to plunge into the fog again.

It’s interesting how much this description works for events in life. I, for one, look back to this whole website experience with memories of not knowing much of what I was doing. But here I am writing the 250th blog of Brushstrokes of a Theonerd.

Sure, I still have new things to learn. More fog to plunge into so that the website can be better than it has been. But some of the old confusions and fears have faded because that fog has lifted.

Even beyond language learning and blog writing, we can describe our spiritual lives with a similar image of fog.

We begin with our selfish, sinful selves. Our old habits and ways feel comfortable even as they seek to kill our soul. And then we come to learn that there is a holiness we’re called to. A better life to live. Or as Ephesians 4:24 would call it, the new self that we should put on.

And it looks scary. “Will it really help?” “Do I have to give up things I like doing?” “Is this difficulty really worth it?” “I wish I could go back to how easy things were before.”

Hopefully, we step into the fog even though it leaves us vulnerable and worried. Yeah, it’ll take time. Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Decades. But eventually the fog will lift. The ways of God begin to make some sense. His righteous path for our life stands straight before us. And we know his shepherd voice.

But he will always call us to further holiness, more godly ways. And we must be willing to push further. Plunge into the next cloud of fog.

It’s kinda like we’re walking by faith. And isn’t that what following Jesus is all about?