^” So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

We now are talking about “reopening” States across the country. For us individually, it will feel less like an opening and more like a “reentry”.  It makes me think about those space missions that we learned about as kids and the astronauts and their space capsules/shuttles as they returned to the earth’s atmosphere.  Back then, the angle and speed by which the space capsules reentered was very important.  Too steep and the capsule would come in “too hot” and burn up, too shallow and the capsule would skip off the atmosphere into space like a skipping rock.  And maybe, that is what we need to consider as we “reenter” the workplace and other activities soon.  It’s been a long five, now starting a sixth week of Shelter in Place for Patti and me and believe me, we are ready to get back to our regularly scheduled programming, but we also have talked about what it will be like when “off we go” to a day outside of the house, by ourselves, etc.  I’m thinking, too much too fast isn’t a good idea, but too slow and too hesitant won’t be right either, so like the brave astronauts who commanded their space capsules, I/we all need to thoughtfully and prayerfully find the “glide plane” that is best for us and to start that planning now.

I’ve been spending time in the Old Testament and I have been struck now more in these readings than in times past about the Israelites entry into Canaan and how they finally got there and who got to make it in and who didn’t, Moses in particular. There come certain things in life that God chooses for us to not achieve or attain and without a doubt they are always the hardest things for us to accept. This time we have been in, and might be in for a while longer, will mess up a lot of things in our plans, goals, jobs, dreams, careers, etc.  There might be aspirations we have that are being delayed or changed that we have no control over and yet, we need to have something to hang onto so that “reenter” in the best frame of mind and spirit. We are taught that He goes ahead of us and like anyone who is leading or guiding someone well, God will not take us someplace that is not good for us or not in His will.  That, we can know for sure.

May we reenter well; at His speed and angle, which He is preparing for us even now.

Reference: Deuteronomy 31:6 (New Living Translation)