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Walking at night in the jungles of Colombia, I sometimes carried a small homemade lamp. Our Colombian friends took a little tin can, framed a jerry-built handle, filled the can with kerosene, put a wick through the top and lit it. This functionally acceptable lamp lit our path. However, the little lamp was not a flashlight nor a searchlight, nor could it begin to compete. Sometimes I wished that I had such a light. Who knows what might be lurking in that path, and a stronger light would have offered more security. But the little tin can lamp was the only item available.

The tin lamp shone only a small circle of light, not a strong beam shining down the distant path. If I wished to get more light, there was only one alternative—to step into the light that was available. Immediately I had enough light to take one more step.

I began to realize that this was precisely what the psalmist had in mind: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps.119:105). The only lamp the psalmist knew in those days was a small oil lamp made of clay. This served functionally like the tin can lamp I carried in Colombia. It cast a circle of just enough light for taking one step. He never heard of a flashlight or searchlight.

Is not this the way God so often chooses to lead us, both individually and corporately? He seldom seems to give us a searchlight that will show us where we will be or what our circumstances will be in the distant future. In our personal lives we crave to know the future, but it is seldom revealed to us.

Corporately, mission administrators revel in long range planning. We make three year, five year, ten year rolling scenarios. We consult our futurologist friends, and we try to plan in the light of what we foresee. This is all both commendable and indispensable. Where would we be if we did not do any long range planning?

However, we can never be certain that what we are seeing will really take place. The light God gives may be just for the next step. Even as recently as the late 1980s, reputable missiologists confidently predicted that by the year AD 2000, 87 percent of the world would be inaccessible to foreign missions. Closed countries would proliferate leaving only small regions open to missions. This stimulated growing interest in alternative methods such as tentmaking.

Then suddenly in 1989, without any warning or prediction by a sociologist, futurologist, politician or missiologist, the Berlin Wall came crashing down and communism collapsed. Countries all across Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and Central Asia burst open to missions. Soon we were hearing that the three most tightly closed countries left were Albania, Mongolia and North Korea. Today solid groups of evangelicals are growing in those first two, and who knows what may come in North Korea?

Despite all of our careful long range planning—and I repeat that this is commendable and necessary—we still are limited to the circle of light that illumines the next step. Rather than bemoan the fact that we cannot see the distant future, let us take the next step while keeping our eyes on what we believe and hope to be the path we should be following. If and when changes come, the circle of light will still be there for the next step.

Let’s not forget that the Word of God is filled with wonderful and well known promises that he will guide us. “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you” (Ps. 32:8). “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3:5-6).

We claim such verses with joy and assurance (and rightly so), but we must remember that God does not promise how far ahead he will lead us. So let’s step into the circle of light that is available and move ahead with confidence and joy.

David Howard is former president of Latin America Mission.