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Outrunning Your Headlights

Have you ever wandered through a dark room? Maybe looking to retrieve something and you know where it should be, so you don’t bother to turn on the room’s light. We all know this has one of two outcomes: first being (if you have kids) treading on some Lego. The other is stubbing your toe on a piece of furniture. I’ve missed weeks of hockey thanks to broken toes from wandering through a dark room to find items where I thought they were supposed to be.

In my youth and as a young adult, I raced go karts and dabbled in other disciplines (see photo) and have an ongoing passion for motorsport and racing even if it's only something I enjoy on TV now that I have a young family. There’s a saying in endurance racing when you’re driving at night where you “outrun your headlights”: simply put, this is where you are going so fast that by the time your headlights illuminate an object in the road you physically do not have enough time to react and avoid before colliding with it.

I think this is relevant today when COVID remains a presence in our lives. We try to see the light at the end of the tunnel, for life to return to normal, but only see the darkness of the impact that this virus continues to have.

There is a common theme here. In these situations there is utter darkness, and we as human beings struggle to function when we cannot see what we are doing or where we are going. The irony is that even in broad daylight when we can physically see what we’re doing and where we’re going, apart from the Lord, we still live in utter darkness.

While we cannot do anything to prevent the sun from setting and night settling in, we can rest in the Light of the World (John 8:12), having placed our hope in Christ, not man (Psalm 118:8).

So, before you step on some Lego, stub your toe, or run into an object you could have avoided by slowing down, spend time in the Word, and trust that the Word will become the Light of the World (John 1:4-5).

 

— Ben Stulen is a Fellowship International missionary serving in the Onside Athletics ministry.