The Bridge in the Fog

In George MacDonald's novel The Princess and the Goblin, young Princess Irene discovers a mysterious thread given to her by her great-great-grandmother. The thread is nearly invisible, and it doesn't lead where Irene expects. When she follows it one night, it takes her not toward safety and warmth but straight into the dark, goblin-infested mines beneath the mountain.

Every instinct tells her to turn back. The thread leads deeper into danger, not away from it. Her friend Curdie, walking beside her, can't even feel the thread. He thinks she's lost her mind. But Irene holds on, step after step, because she trusts the one who gave it to her.

And the thread leads them out. Not by the route they would have chosen, but by the only route that actually works.

MacDonald, who profoundly influenced C.S. Lewis, understood something about trust that we often forget: it is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to follow the thread even when the path makes no sense to anyone watching — and sometimes no sense to us either.

The Psalmist wrote, "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path." Notice — a lamp for your feet, not a floodlight for the whole valley. God gives us enough light for the next step. Trust is not seeing the destination. Trust is holding the thread.

When the path God sets before you leads somewhere unexpected, don't let go. The One who gave you the thread knows exactly where it leads.