Morning finds me at the table before the house has fully woken. The hour is thin, the light undecided. I sit without movement, a decision pressing somewhere beyond language, and before me a cup sends up its quiet steam.
At first, its surface holds the likeness of a void—dark, unbroken, unwilling to show what lies beneath. I add a measure of cream and turn the spoon once, slowly. The darkness yields. It loosens itself into motion, folds of pale drifting through the depths, until the void is no longer visible. In its place: a clouded surface, smooth and deceptive, concealing what remains below. Nothing is revealed except through taking it in.
There is a word that moves easily upon the tongue of many, yet it does not sit easily within me. Its shape is spoken as though it were firm, but when I lean upon it, it yields. I am told to trust its counsel, yet its voice does not arrive as a voice should. It causes a low unrest—no clamor, no cry—only the unease of being guided by something that seems, itself, to be waiting.
For this is the trouble of it: I ask faith for an answer, and faith turns and asks the same of me.
It is like two standing at the threshold of evening, the light thinning, the hour pressing, yet neither carrying a hunger strong enough to name. What shall we eat? I do not know. What would you have? I cannot say. Anything would do. Yes—anything. And so the words pass back and forth, not to arrive, but to delay. Until one finally speaks—not from desire, but from weariness—offering a name only in hope that it will be refused, so the choosing may fall again to the other.
So it is when I wait upon faith and hear only my own breath returning.
How does one answer when the sky does not answer back? How does one keep a course when the path parts cleanly and neither side declares itself false? There are moments when rightness does not announce itself by contrast. Two ways may both carry good intent. Neither violates conscience. Neither bears the mark of open wrong. And yet only one may be taken. The other will close—not with thunder, but with quiet finality—its endings never known.
It is said that waiting may clarify. That time will reveal what haste cannot. Perhaps a sign will arrive. Perhaps a door will ease open, just enough to show a hinge, a shadow, a portion of what waits beyond. But waiting also carries its own cost. What if what lies unseen is urgent? What if the season passes while you listen? And so another question rises, uninvited: is faith permitted to be incomplete? Is it allowed to step without sight, trusting that the ground will meet the foot once it is lifted?
Or does hesitation itself become the choice—allowing one road to be swallowed by growth until only a single way remains, not because it was chosen, but because all others were abandoned?
Perhaps the answer is not in movement at all. Perhaps one is meant to root. To remain where one stands and test the soil. To see whether life will take hold there, whether growth will answer if patience is given room.
I turned toward the old words, toward those who had walked before me. They were not hard to find. Their paths were narrow, often harsh, marked by silence and loss. Yet they leaned upon promise. Faith, for them, was not emptiness. It was response. Not belief cast into darkness, but trust set upon the One who had spoken. There were moments of choosing, yes—but often, when the hour came, the way was revealed. Intervention arrived. The path named itself.
But now I stand without such naming. Prayer has been spoken. Study has been made. Intention has been weighed. Still no door opens. No voice distinguishes the way. I am left with choosing alone.
And perhaps that is the truer struggle—not fear of choosing wrongly, but grief at choosing without witness.
Maybe this was never a question faith was meant to answer. Maybe decision is simply decision, heavy because it does not clothe itself in certainty. Maybe this moment belongs to a pattern larger than my seeing—one that does not explain itself beforehand, but only later, when the walking has already been done and the shape of the path can finally be traced.
And so I remain—not waiting for clarity, but listening for the courage to move.
© 2026 Steven Scott. All Rights Reserved.
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