The Lord replied, “I will personally go with you … and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.” Exodus 33:14
Are you worried about your future? Most of us are.
A 17-year-old girl named Joni dove into a shallow bay one summer day. At that moment, she began a journey to an unknown destination that she would never have wished for. Hitting the bottom of the bay, Joni suffered an injury that paralyzed her from the neck down and confined her to life in a wheelchair. After her accident, she said the thought of the future terrified her.
Like Moses in the Bible, Joni asked, God, “Let me know your ways so that I may understand,” (Exodus 33:13). God had asked Moses to lead his rowdy people through a desert, and Joni didn’t know it, but God was calling her to what would be a powerful, global ministry to people with disabilities.
Facing the future with no idea of where you’re going, especially in bleak times, is scary at best and terrifying at worst. Joni points out that we want to say, “Let me know the way that you’re taking me, God. But God does not unfold the blueprint; he is the blueprint. If we are insistent in wanting to know the way, let’s recall that Jesus is the Way.”[1]
Moses asked God to go with him into the unknown future, pointing out, “Your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all other people on the earth” (Exodus 33:16b). God answered Moses and Joni, and God answers you as you face an unknown future with this promise: “I will personally go with you … and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you” (Exodus 33:14).
Facing an unknown future today? Call out to God. God’s personal presence, not the details of His plan, is what we need to face the future.
[1] Tada, Joni Eareckson. “#77, I Will Go With You.” The Practice of the Presence of God, Multnomah, 2023, p. 155.
