One dreary grey day, many years ago, I stared out the window from my seat on a delayed flight to New Mexico. To be honest, the weather reflected my mood pretty accurately. In a word: joyless. After everyone boarded and buckled in, the pilot announced our imminent takeoff. Soon we were speeding down the runway. Our wheels left the tarmac and we climbed higher. The landscape fell away until we were high above looking down at a green monochrome quilt of geometric shapes and interstices.

Then, as we entered a cloud, it all went gray. A cloud is nothing more than fog with a flight plan. But now I couldn’t see where we were going. At such a time, pilots rely heavily on instrument panels. After what seemed like a long time, I was surprised by what I saw next: A sky filled with bright radiant sunshine high above the clouds. In an instant, my mood brightened and so did my perspective.

What does this mean for you?

From the ground, my reality was a cheerless ceiling of darkness. But, with my limited perspective, I wasn’t seeing the whole picture. We often make choices and base decisions on what we see. More often than not, we have inadequate information. And, where we lack facts, we fill in the narrative.

Imagine a spring where it always rained, but the flowers never bloomed. Or, from CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the land where “it was always winter but never Christmas.” With limited perspectives and you come to limited conclusions. I had determined cloudy days equal a gloomy world. But when the plane landed, to my surprise, it was a gorgeous day in New Mexico.

Going from limited information to increased information might feel scary like when our plane went through a huge grey area. The path isn’t always clear. It feels dark, isolating, and cloying.

Have you ever driven in the fog? You know what I mean. The road you’re so used to traveling in one context looks very different when that context is removed. You might have felt like you were lost, surprised to find out the road traveled in directions you never noticed before, or landmarks weren’t where you expected them to be.

When you can’t see what’s ahead, other methods of navigation must be employed. For pilots, an instrument panel. For me, it’s faith. I stay the course even if what I find is completely unexpected. I stay on the road and keep moving forward, no matter what it looks like because sooner or later it will all become clear.

What’s in the way of seeing the whole picture? Have your decisions been affected by not having all the facts? If things look dark right now, is it because you can’t see the whole picture?

The truth is, just beyond the cloud cover, beyond the fog, the sun is beaming. The sun hasn’t disappeared, nor dimmed its light in the least. The sun shines brilliantly every day whether we see it or not. It helps to remember that clouds and fog are temporary conditions. Despite the present perspective, the sun still rules the heavens.

No matter what it looks like right now, there are brighter days ahead if I just wait it out and keep the faith.