I was disheartened when I saw the current conditions and hourly forecast that appeared on my device. In red script, it shouted at me:
DENSE FOG ADVISORY
It had rained the night before, and the state park we were staying at in West Virginia was socked in with fog. Ordinarily, this would have been a reason to have an extra coffee cup while looking out of the picture windows at the forest beyond the cabin we had called home for a few days. But this morning, we had made plans to see a grand view.
We were on a plateau above the Bluestone Gorge, an impressive gash in the landscape that an ancient river had carved. Fifty years prior, developers had built a lodge on the riverbanks far below and then linked the river to the plateau above with a series of tram-like gondolas that carried tourists up and down the canyon walls.
Lately, the tram had been closed more often than not because of renovations to the archaic transportation system. We had planned to ride the tram that foggy morning, but I was bummed that we wouldn’t be able to see the gorge below us.
Nonetheless, my family was alone on the cloud-filled platform when we boarded the gondola.
The tram operator welcomed us, ushered us in, secured the door, and did a dramatic pulling-maneuver with our wee little gondola to latch it onto the cable.
We began to descend.
It was a quiet ride in those first few seconds of our descent. Surrounded by a gray, swirling mist, it felt like we were lost in a cloudbank. Except for what was directly beneath us, we could see nothing…until we could!
Suddenly, the gorge came into stark relief, and we could see the deep expanse of the gorge, the trees on the far side of the canyon, and the churning river below. We had dipped below the clouds! Contrary to conventional wisdom, the fog didn’t fill the gorge as one might expect. The fog was confined to the plateau from which we had descended. Meteorologists have a term for this: the condition was overcast rather than undercast.
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud and be delighted that our gondola trip would be redeemed with good visibility. What seemed impossible to see at first became evident when we dipped below the clouds.
The story of God’s relationship with His people in scripture is replete with these moments. Some moments seem hopeless until hope springs eternal. Some situations feel doomed—like the Hebrews penned against the Red—until God comes to the rescue. Some conditions are deadly—like famines, lions’ dens, furnaces, and crosses—until God provides a way out.
The message is as clear as the view from Waterrock Knob on a sunny October day. All is not lost. Even when logic suggests despair, God can bring revelation and hope in extraordinary ways.
Yes, in a predictable fashion, we reentered the clouds on our return to the lip of the canyon.
Who would have thought it? The view was down below.