Uncharted

 "For I know the One in Whom I have put my trust." I Timothy 1:12

Mark Buchanan in his book, Hidden In Plain Sight, writes of the beautifully illustrated maps produced by cartographers of the Middle Ages. He said, "They typically inscribed uncharted areas with the words, Terra incognita, "unknown earth." There would often be added the warning, Hic sunt dracones....Here be dragons.

From the perspective of the 21st century, we laugh at that superstition. There were no dragons. Yet they were real to those who drew the maps and there were few who dared to go into those uncharted and unknown places. Their fear of the dragons kept them out. This gives rise to a question for each of us; what "dragons" and the fear you have of them are keeping you from entering into the unknown land that He calls you to? Especially when you know that if He has called you, there really will be dragons there. Satan, whom the Bible calls "the dragon," lurks in all the unknown lying before us. He always has and always will. Will you go anyway?

Radio host Glen Beck has a segment titled, "What I Know And What I Don't Know." For him, for all of us, the second column is far longer than the first. This is especially true when He is leading us into a place we've never been before facing circumstances, obstacles......dragons that we've never faced before. He calls us into the unknown.....again. And there be dragons.....again. What do we know about this new land? Little or nothing. What we do know is that He calls us to enter in with Him, and with Him, overcome all the dragons we encounter. But He doesn't leave us basking in the victory. He keeps calling us into new lands, new uncharted waters, and yes, new dragons. Moving into more unknown but clinging to the One we do know, must know, and the One who will, through us, slay every dragon we encounter. He will because His Son, on the cross and in His resurrection, slew every dragon we could ever encounter in any land to which He takes us. Here be dragons, but He has his foot firmly upon their necks, and in Him, so do we. Every new land He calls us to is already ours.

The life journey of the apostle Paul was one of constantly entering unknown and uncharted waters and lands. There were always dragons there and they were always fierce. They never stopped him because all he didn't know about these places was nullified by the great truth he spoke and wrote in 2 Timothy 1:12, I KNOW the One in whom I have put my trust. Knowing Him broke all the power of the unknown waters and lands and the dragons they contained. Do we, or does the threat of the dragons keep us trapped in a land we're not meant to dwell in. A land that may seem comfortable, but is actually a prison, keeping us from our destiny in Him. Keeping us from being all He created us to be.

The uncharted land may be a place we never intended to go, or would choose to inhabit, yet He leads us there, or has allowed us to come to it. Divorce, sickness, death, and a thousand and one other kinds of losses constitute that land, yet here we are, in the middle of the unknown. Let the whisper of His Spirit be heard by you; "Fear not. I am with you. I own even this land. It's I who rules here, not the dragon. And in this place you will discover riches in Me that only can be found in this uncharted place. Press on with Me and lay hold of them." Press on my friends. He owns the land, and in Him, so do we.

Blessings,
Pastor O