I will go before you

Gavin Chittick's powerful reminder that God goes before us—even when the road ahead takes an unexpected turn.

It was the first Sunday of January 2024, and I preached to my church on Isaiah 45:2: “I will go before you and make the crooked places straight.” I passionately encouraged the congregation that whatever lay ahead in the coming year, we could take great comfort and strength as God already knew and he’d already prepared a way through. Not only is he with us, but he also goes before us.

At the time, I was convinced this would be a key verse for others in the year that lay ahead, but little did I realise just how much I’d be clinging fast to these truths myself in the months that followed.

Friday 19 April started just like any other school day, only this day I was running slightly ahead of schedule. Unaware of what was about to hit me, I decided to use the spare ten minutes before the madness of the school run to sit on my bed with a coffee and a slice of toast.

As I stood back up, seemingly from nowhere, I suddenly began to feel very unwell; I wandered through to the kitchen before finding myself pinned to the floor. Assuming I was suffering from norovirus as I knew it was doing the rounds, I lay there waiting for the wave of sickness to pass. When it didn’t and my speech became laborious and slurred my wife Louise called 999. Fifteen minutes later the ambulance was at our house and before long I was lying in the back being taken to hospital.

The doctor told me I was being treated for a suspected stroke and my immediate response was “that’s impossible!” I’m too young for a stroke, my lifestyle doesn’t equate to having one – I don’t drink and I don’t smoke were thoughts that flooded my mind. A week of tests followed, confirming that I had indeed suffered a stroke and that the probable cause was a blood clot passing through a previously unknown hole in my heart to the ‘wrong’ side, resulting in the clot travelling to my brain instead of my lungs where it should have gone.

Over the next few months as I slowly recovered and battled through fatigue and loss of confidence, it struck me many times that God really did go before me and make the crooked places straight. If I’d had the stroke on a Friday even two weeks earlier, Louise would have been out at work, as her working days had just changed to incorporate a Tuesday instead of a Friday. And if it had been even ten minutes later, I’d have been in the car driving the kids to school.

I may never know why God allowed this to happen (and I’m okay with that), but I will always know that he was with me when it did. Receiving the support I have from family, friends, church and colleagues over this last year has been truly humbling, beautiful, and a great source of strength all at the same time. Every visit, phone call, message, prayer and unexpected meal dropped off at the house had been a greater blessing than anyone will even know. Through it all I’ve learned yet again that God really does go before us as well as travel with us.

The path of life can be, and often is, crooked, but somehow even the most difficult of paths is made bearable by knowing that we are not alone; not now and not ever!

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.