Later, in one of his talks, Jesus said to the people, “I am the Light of the world. So if you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, for living light will flood your path.” John 8:12 (TLB)
The darkest places I’ve been are not the caverns we visited in Tennesse or Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico.
Yes, they were very dark. In both places, the tour guides turned off the lights and the total absence of light was frightening. It’s something I’ve never experienced above ground and frankly don’t plan to do again. Creepy!
But the darkest places were when I stepped away from God. In my teens and a few times after that. I thought I was ok. I wasn’t.
Once, I even justified my actions by saying God wanted me to be happy so what I was doing was perfectly fine. That’s how far off-center I was.
We are warned that life comes with trials (John 16:33). Even after accepting Christ as my Lord and Savior, I still found myself in the darkness of disappointment and full-on distress once or twice, at least. I’d like to say this doesn’t happen anymore, but it does. I am human, not Super Christian, and these things will happen.
The good news is that we don’t have to stay in the darkness. Jesus is the light of the world, follow Him and never walk in darkness (John 8:12). Sometimes we might just lose track of the light for a little while.
When I find life growing dim it’s usually because I’ve drifted away from Him in some way. Maybe I’ve been busy and not in regular prayer or not reading my Bible as I should. Maybe I’ve started relying on myself for everything. Or maybe I’m just tired and not getting enough rest. Can you relate?
These are all circumstances that work in the enemy’s favor. He will use anything at his disposal to amplify our feelings and circumstances to create distance between us and God.
There’s a reason the darkness starts creeping in. Try not to give it any space. Instead, seek God’s presence constantly through prayer, study, and thankfulness (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18). Ask Him to help you spot your triggers before someone turns the lights off on you.
The Book of Psalms encourages any day and it’s a great place to start. There we are reminded of God’s love, protection, patience, guidance, safety, and our own identity as His children. And that’s just one book of the Bible.
Thank you, Lord, for Your Word and work in our lives to bring us ever closer to you. You are always a beacon of pure light in the darkness.
This post is part of the Five Minute Friday blog link-up! Each week Kate Motaung provides a one-word writing prompt for participants to free write for five minutes flat and share their work with the online community. This week’s prompt is DARKNESS.
Photo by Janus Y on Unsplash
TLB – The Living Bible
Suzette: How true! I love your transparency.
Thanks for your ongoing encouragement.
Fantastic words
Thank you, Suzy.
Beautiful post, and yeah, Carlsbad Caverns gets pretty dark when they turn out the lights.
I think that I’ve been fortunate
that my faith has kept me whole,
and that I have still to get
to the dark night of the soul.
I’ve lived a life of violence,
wild and quick and deftly done,
when killing was, to all intents
and purposes, kind of fun.
To survive this skewed perception
the love of God was at the fore,
and not a kind of self-deception
that always left me needing more.
I don’t regret the life I’ve had,
for I blocked ‘worse’ from just the bad.
Thanks, Andrew. I admire that you can see what your faith has done.
God bless you.
I love your title! There is always light. I love this time of year because, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, Christmas is right around Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year. What a wonderful time to celebrate the coming of the light of the world! I’m your tardy FMF neighbor this week. 🙂
Bethany, Thanks for commenting. Even on the darkest day, He is light. BTW, I know there’s a Friday in every week but, when it shows up, I can still be a bit surprised. That’s when I’m the tardy neighbor.
Beautifully written.
Hi Jennifer. I appreciate your kind words. Thank you so much. Sorry for the delayed response, we should be back to normal soon.
The Psalms are definitely a good place to start!
They always work for me, that’s for sure. Thanks for stopping by. I haven’t been on the computer for days. Sorry for the delayed response.