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Into the Unknown --
by David G. Duggan ©
www.virtueonline.org
November 25, 2023
More than half my life ago--38 years-- I stepped into the unknown. I left the familiar comfort of an unhappy marriage, packed up a rental van, and with furniture, clothing and a bike in the back left my life in New York City and headed west.
Six-and-a-half years earlier I had made the reverse trip--east to the unknown of law practice, marriage, and a life in the Apple, the city which doesn't sleep. Full of ambition (who isn't in his 20s?) I was intent on becoming an all-star lawyer, husband and Christian, a trifecta which would cement my immortality among the pantheon of those whom I idolized: Judge Learned Hand, John Foster Dulles, and Alexander Hamilton (before the musical).
Wrong. Maybe I was in it for myself. But God has a peculiar way of making His will be known. He dashes your dreams. Professional recognition? Maybe. Marital bliss? Hardly. Christian commitment? Not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
God often calls us to step into the unknown--Abram who left his urban existence in the city of Ur to be a nomad in the Judean desert; Moses drawn into the maelstrom of Egyptian slave politics to lead his people to freedom; my namesake David, drawn from his sheep in the fields to take over as king of a people clamoring for recognition. The path of the unknown may not be straight, but it leads ultimately to God.
Not quite 40 years after that wilderness journey crossing my own Jordan of regret and consolation, I can say without reservation "goodbye" means "God be with you." He is even if we don't see it.
David Duggan is a retired attorney living in Chicago
