Traveling in the Dark

“There will be dark days ahead”. We may have heard this from frantic parents, cautioning teachers, or pastors imploring us to “gird our loins” in preparation for the apocalypse.

We all have dark days. Ten days wrestling with coronavirus, a teenage child who drops off the grid for 24 hours, or a credit card fraud invasion of your bank account. Short bursts of darkness. But some of us are forced to travel in the dark. What I mean by this is extended time in this uncertainty. No end in sight. A drug dependent adult child, crushing financial hardships that will not end no matter how many right things you do, health issues that most likely will never resolve as you see your ability to manage your life on your own evaporate. How can one in such circumstances walk in any lasting hope?

In such distress we simply must reach beyond ourselves. Certainly we must reach out to others. I don’t want to speak as if this is a simple part of this movement of life. But right now I want to focus on reaching out existentially – to a power greater than ourselves. Those who live in such darkness are faced with the absolute necessity of finding hope through finding God. I hear them saying such things as, “Give me his phone number and I will put him on speed dial.” Or “I’ve knocked on every door or turned over every rock that I possibly can find… Still no higher power in sight.”

Here, I can only speak from personal experience, and from the experience of those I have walked with in the dark. One of the most powerful truths for those who wake up to this dilemma each morning and go to sleep with it as well, is coming to believe that this apparently avoidant God is in truth, everywhere. And even more potentially absurd – that HE is seeking us rather than us hopelessly seeking Him. HE is here, available – loaded with a truckload of hope, purpose and a glorious future just over the next rise.
Next blog – is this apparent absurd turnabout true? And if so, how to weaponize this belief structure!