End to Enders - Kevin Spencer

"…and you will hear a voice say, ‘This is the way, turn around and walk here.’" Isaiah 30:21

Hanging on the wall in my office (okay it’s not so much an office as a corner of the living room), we have a framed document proclaiming that my dear wife Charlotte and I are official “End to Enders.” Part of a promotional campaign for the Blue Ridge Parkway, the document is ‘awarded’ to anyone who has traveled the entire length of the Parkway.

From almost as long as I have memory, my family has traveled and camped on the Parkway. When I was a boy, it was a road of mystery. There might be waterfalls, amazing vistas, ancient log cabins, or deer, and maybe even a bear around every bend. The Parkway is host to a lifetime of memories, from camping to picnicking to racing my little brother, David, up Mt. Pisgah. (He won, the speedy little scoundrel.)

From a host of mountain tops up and down the length of the Parkway, you can look down and see miles of the ribbon of concrete as it winds along the ridge tops below. As a boy, I imagined this must be how God sees us, gazing down on us from some remote spot high above, occasionally brushing aside a cloud to get a better view.

As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve discovered that my youthful analogy has held up. No, I don’t think of God peering down through the clouds anymore, although He might, but rather that He lives in me and with me. But what is comforting, like my boyhood image of God looking down on the Parkway, is that God can see all the twists and turns of my life from beginning to end. God can see what I can’t.

He can see what lies around the bends in the road. He can see what joys and dangers are hidden from me by the curves of life’s road. He provides for me what He knows I’ll need. He teaches me lessons that will serve me up the road, in some future situation I can’t even imagine now, because He knows where my life’s road is going. I take comfort in that…when I remember it. Unfortunately sometimes He has to remind me that He is in control, that He knows the road ahead far better than I do.

When the curves in your life’s road seem to be too sharp to handle, remember that He knows what lies around the corner. From birth to death, God has an ‘End to Ender’ certificate for each of our lives. Trust in Him.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved. Read Kevin's devotions.