The thin rail of grace...

I have been thinking about this a bit, and have decided being a Christian is like walking a narrow, rough road on the edge of a cliff with only a thin rail between you and the endless chasm.  It can be scary, especially when you stumble and fall, but as long as you stay behind the rail, you will journey safely to your own destination on the path.

But what does that actually mean to the believer?  Does safety mean that life should be trouble free?  We all know that Christians have their share of hurt, sadness and mourning in this earthly life.  Christians get cancer, fall into depression, have accidents and financial problems and make terrible judgments that result in the predictable poor outcomes.  It is part of the human condition to have troubles, and Christians are not immune.

What does faith bring to our lives, then, if it doesn't prevent us from the struggle?  What does safety represent to the Christian?  What can we take from living a Godly life that would be missing without that faith?

I think the confusion comes when people misunderstand that we all have a different stopping point.  The cancer we are fighting here will not, in the eternal rest we are heading towards, be more than a blip on the radar of our existence.  Our financial troubles will have no meaning in a world without material goods.  No matter what happens now, it is simply a way to move forward into the next phase of the journey, and remaining safe means something altogether different to the Christian.

We don't always have the answers in this life, but our soul continues the journey.  The story is not over with our earthly death.  Because we do not know what comes next, what seems like an ending here may be the beginning of something better.  That is where faith comes in, trusting that God's plan is more comprehensive than our small understanding of how it will be.

What we do have is the promise of safety in the Lord.  In Psalm 4:8, we are told,

"In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety."

This is the promise of faith.  In the end, when we have finished our own part of the journey, we will come safely to the arms of God.  It is not a promise that the evil of the world won't touch us or those we love.  It is a guarantee that when the earthly life we have is over, we will be safely delivered, for all eternity, into the warm embrace of a loving God who has provided the thin rail that kept us from falling into the worldly pit of eternity without God.

God's grace, through the blood of our Savior, built the rail that nothing can break.  When I stumble and fall, I know God is there to protect me from the eternal abyss.  It is the only safety net I need.