Foggy Decisions: When Up Is Down and Down Is Up

Fog creates poor visibility. In an airplane that foggy feeling is disorienting. There are no landmarks. Are you going up or down? Foggy decisions result if you rely on your own perceptions. So who do you trust for direction when you don’t know where you are?

As a little boy, John F. Kennedy Jr. sat on the lap of his father in the AirForce One airplane, looking out the window. His fascination with airplanes grew. As an adult, he acquired a pilot’s license to fly a private airplane of his own.

On that fateful day, July 16, 1999, he failed to trust his instruments. As the fog came in unexpectedly over the ocean, he trusted his own feelings and sense of direction. He and his wife and sister-in-law crashed into the deep and were never seen alive again. He thought up was down and down was up, and down meant into the ocean. Did he expect to die that day at age 39? No one really knows when that time comes.

Timing of death

Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net,
or birds are taken in a snare,
so people are trapped by evil times
that fall unexpectedly upon them. -Ecclestiastes 9:12 (NIV)

If you always trust God’s instruments — His Word, the Bible — more than your own judgment, you will know what direction to go. There may be foggy times of uncertainty, but if you pray and ask Him, He will show you which way to go.

Who you trust, and what you trust, make a difference in life and in death. You can easily be disoriented in a foggy environment and lose your sense of direction. When you trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own judgment — even when up seems down and down seems like it is up — you will never lose your way and will arrive safely at your destination.