Indeed, these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him! Job 26:14

The edges of His ways. That phrase rolls around in my mind these days. I think about how much I have learned about God and yet how little I know.

I think about being still enough to hear the whisper of Him.

There have been early mornings with a touch of cool, reminding me that we are on the edge of fall. We are on the edge of new, the edge of color, the edge of cozy.

It’s funny how you long for the whole when you are on the edge. You long for the idea of it, the best of it, the bigness of it. Eventually you are faced with the truth of it. The truth is more than the idea and has some gnarly bits of real. The truth of autumn with its pumpkin spice and crackling fires and beautiful trees is also coldness and too much dark and the barrenness of fallen leaves.

The edges of His ways are the same, I think. We want to fall headlong into His love and the big picture of His grace. We like the ideas of abundance and riches and faith but have to navigate through darkness and trial and hard to fully understand, to fully know Him.

Marissa is on the edge of surgery. We haven’t spent much time thinking about it, but it looms closer and now it is more real. On the edge it feels overwhelmingly frightening. It’s a new corner, unfamiliar and dark. We know the reality will be somehow both harder and better than we expect. The whole experience will grow us in ways we couldn’t know. We will be both overwhelmed and rescued, both terrified and filled with peace, both blinded and infused with light.

We will know the hard edge of experience along with the soft edges of His ways. We will see the panoramic view of beautiful mountains almost impossible to climb, of sun-filled meadows only accessible through thorny trails.

We will know Him more, trust Him more, love Him more.

What new thing is speaking fear to you? What overwhelms and burdens your heart? What are you on the edge of that takes your breath away?

Trust in the edges of His ways and long to know the whole of Him. In the stillness of your fear, listen to His whisper.

Even the edges of His ways are filled with grace.

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19