Monday, November 2, 2026From the news

The Bridge We Cannot See Across

Karl Bushby's long walk home, which began in grief and ended at a bridge he could not see across, reminds us that God walks with us through the hardest distances, even when we cannot see the other side.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 43:2

It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be dismayed.

Deuteronomy 31:8

The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

Psalm 121:7-8

This week the BBC told the story of Karl Bushby, who at twenty-nine walked out of Punta Arenas in Chile with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and turned north, toward home. Nearly three decades later, now fifty-seven, he has crossed four continents, a frozen sea, deserts, mountains and jungles, and he has swum the English Channel. When he reached the Humber Bridge, he said it was the one part of that long journey he clearly remembered, and that its misty span, where you cannot see the far shore, felt almost symbolic to him.

I want to sit gently with that image this morning, because I suspect many of us know it well. Bushby said his journey began after his marriage came apart, when his wife went back to Northern Ireland with their son. Behind every long walk like that is a real wound: the empty chair at the table, the phone that does not ring the way it used to, the question of what home even means now. If that is where your heart is today, you do not have to pretend otherwise. God does not ask us to hurry past our losses. He sees them, and He is not put off by them.

Scripture never promises that the road will be short or that the bridge will be clear. It promises something better: that we will not cross it alone. Moses spoke these words to a people who were about to enter a land they had never seen, and his assurance still stands: "It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be dismayed." God does not wait on the far bank for us to arrive. He goes ahead into the mist.

The prophet Isaiah spoke to a people who felt swept away by their circumstances, and his words speak to anyone standing at the edge of a river they cannot see across: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you." Notice that God does not say the waters will not come. He says the waters will not overwhelm you, because He is with you in them. That is the mercy we are often given: not the absence of the river, but the presence of the One who holds us in it.

For those of us who trust Jesus Christ, this presence has a face. He is the Good Shepherd who does not lose the sheep he loves, the Friend who promised to be with His disciples always, even to the end of the age. When the road feels too long, our hope is not in our own stamina or in how far we have already come. Our hope is in Him, who has already crossed the deepest waters for us and rose again on the other side.

So let me invite you, gently, to take heart. Maybe you are not walking across a continent, but you are carrying a distance of your own: a relationship that has changed, a season you did not choose, a future you cannot yet see. Let us remember that the same Lord who keeps Bushby's steps, and ours, is the Lord who "will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore" (Psalm 121:8). You do not need to see the other shore to take the next step. You only need to know who walks beside you.

Today, take one step in faith. Pray the first honest sentence, make the call you have been putting off, or simply rest for a moment in the promise that you are not alone. The bridge may be misty, but the One who built it is not.