Over the horizon

“The horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.”  That’s the William Blake who gave us Jerusalem.

I grew up with the horizon, looking out over Liverpool Bay from my childhood home in Waterloo. It suggested a world beyond what we could see: ships appearing and disappearing on their journeys, slipping in and out of view. With them came a sense of the unknown — and with that, a quiet stirring of adventure.

And today, as I write this blog: I see another horizon.  This time nothing between us and Antarctica, some 8000 kms across the Atlantic through the gap between Africa and South America.  Yes, we are back in Tenerife, for our annual fix of vitamin D.

The horizon gives a sense of vastness. So the prophet encourages the people of Israel, crushed by their exile in Babylon: “Listen, Jacob. Listen, Israel— I’m the One who named you! I’m the One. I got things started and, yes, I’ll wrap them up. Earth is my work, handmade. And the skies—I made them, too, horizon to horizon.(Isaiah 48:12f)

Too often, to quote the title of J B Phillips 1952 classic:  “Our God is too small!” How often does the Bible summon us to lift our eyes, even to glimpse the limitlessness of God’s promises, the scale of his love, even its breadth and length and height and depth. (Ephesians 3:18)

We see this as God promises Abraham a glorious future so that he may heal his rebellious creation through even through his family. “The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west.”” (Genesis 13:14)

Abraham is called to live by faith in God’s faithfulness, to live toward the horizon: eyes lifted, feet moving, heart steady. Not everything is visible yet but enough is seen to keep moving. Faith is learning to walk towards what we cannot yet reach, trusting that God goes ahead of us.

Over there to the right is the island of La Gomera, as always shrouded in mist.  It was from here in 1492  that Chrstopher Columbus set out to discover the New World, determined to find out what lay beyond the never-ending horizon.  To quote novelist André Gide:  “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

As Christians we too are called to head towards the horizon, Faith is not about denial of where we are; it is about refusing to believe that where we are is all there is. As Tom Wright explains: “The gospel is not the removal of horizons, but their expansion.”

The horizon reminds us that our lives are larger than today’s anxieties. When worries press in, they shrink our field of vision: we just gaze at our feet. Everything becomes immediate, urgent, demanding. But step back and look up — literally or spiritually — and the wider view returns. The horizon stretches things out. It restores proportion.

That may be why Jesus so often drew attention outward: to fields, birds, seeds, weather, journeys. He trained his followers to live toward the kingdom of God — a reality already present, yet not fully realised. Near enough to glimpse; distant enough to hope for.

There is something profoundly honest about the horizon. It does not pretend the journey is over. It offers no shortcuts. It simply invites us onward to step out in hope.  For the hope inspired by the Holy Spirit  always lives on the horizon — close enough to glimpse, distant enough to trust.

And perhaps that is why horizons matter so much in the Christian life. They keep us from mistaking comfort for calling, or familiarity for faithfulness. A horizon unsettles us just enough to remind us that discipleship is never static. In fact, two of my childhood friends became sailors, beckoned to set sail over the horizon .

Above all the horizon beckons us to anticipate God’s new creation. So the Bible arrives at its final conclusion:  “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” (Revelation 21:1). 

We learn to trust the God who goes before us, who surrounds us, and who draws us onward. So we lift our eyes. We take the next step. And we live — not anxiously, not fearfully — but expectantly, confident that the God who called us is faithful, and that his promises stretch far beyond the limits of our sight.

“The horizon always beckons us beyond

The limits of the world we think we know,

Beyond the boundaries of our settled ground,

Calling us on, though we may fear to go.”

— Malcolm Guite, Horizon