As I sit here, I am so very thankful for this season called Lent, but I have also been pulled from so many directions that I have wondered if I would walk in the LIGHT again. I type those words and I smile because God is my Light and my Salvation. God IS the reason that darkness is not dark to me. God IS my joy!
Now when you finish reading this article, come back to that opening statement and know that the journey from DARK to DAWN is one that HE walked for us to be able to enjoy the dawn. Let’s begin!
One of the joys of our church these past weeks have been the Lenten Challenge to read the New Testament during this season. This week, I will finish the Book of John. As you know, each of these Books speak about the life of Jesus. And each caused me to shed a tear as I read about the treatment of Jesus. His dark days were many. He taught and healed daily. He changed the lives of those who thought they had no reason to live. He, Jesus, lived bringing life to those who would believe.
Some of those early dark days was for man in the early teachings of Jesus. You see, as Jesus entered the towns, often there were those who were suffering from illnesses of a lifetime. Talk about living in darkness! But Jesus, with a mere word, allowed them to move into the dawn of living. Jesus made clay and placed on the eyes of the blind man and immediately, his darkness turned to his dawning of a new day.
There were new days of light when Jesus spoke and the young girl was raised from the dead. The woman who had suffered some twenty years with her illness simply touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and her dawning of new life began. There was also the Samaritan woman who spoke with Jesus at the well. In their conversation, Jesus told her of the darkness in which she was living and not only granted her living water, but also gave her new life. Her change came also with the dawn of a complete community.
We’ll get back to scripture, but first, let me challenge you to visit your darkness. We are often confronted with loss. This situation will generally throw us into a darkness that is almost unshakeable. We have to deal with the reason for the loss. Sometimes that reason is a long illness. That might make it a wee bit easier to handle for we don’t wish to see our loved ones fighting for daily living. It is sometimes an answered prayer to let go and release them into the healing hands of God.
Then there just might be a quick darkness. Even when we walk with Jesus, that kind of immediate hurt or loss makes the darkness unbearable to live with. The immediate loss of a loved one, whether is be from an accident, a stroke, or even just an unexpected death takes us to a darkness that is hard to live with. It is difficult to cry out to God in those situations.
But God remains faithful and waits for us to reach out to Him and His healing. He waits for us to walk toward the LIGHT of healing. He waits – and then He responds with the answers that we can receive. That answer might be a phone call from a family member or friend. That answer might be in the form of a visit. It could also be the kind words of a doctor or pastor. However it is that we begin to walk toward the Dawn, we know that we can hold onto the hand of God and HE will make our journey alright.
And maybe our darkness is not about a physical loss. How do you handle loneliness? How do you stand when you walk into a house of darkness? How do you manage to continue moving forward when there are blocks put before you to stop your travels? How do you manage to stay in the battle when your world, your family and friends, puts up those barriers to block the journey into the light?
Let’s start with loneliness. Taking a look at a world of loneliness is also about sometimes asking the question, “Why? Why can’t I find that person or that friend who will make me less lonely?” It’s not always about your why, but about us listening to the voice of God who is ALWAYS with us and therefore we are not alone. You see, God probably has put that person, or those people in your life to eradicate the loneliness you might be feeling. Did you ever think that the loneliness that you are living is a choice? Did you ever think that your darkness is sometimes your choice of living?
God, in conversation and in His love for you, continues to fight for you to walk toward the dawn. He wants you to have that friend in your life to help you walk from your darkness and toward the dawning of something new. God’s desire is for you to know that you are not alone and that the LIGHT of His presence is real for you. Remember that He promised to never leave you or forsake you.
Then there was the question of moving forward when there are blocks put before you. When we choose to stand still, to stay where we are in life, we need not blame God or anyone else. We can move the barriers or choose to walk around them. But whatever our decision, we don’t have to stay there and wait for someone else to come along.
We have to do our part to change that “barrier” in our life. We might start by speaking to God. We could use that barrier as an instrument of teaching us to pray. We could use that barrier as a learning tool to just stop and see what it is and how we can learn. We might just use that barrier to hear God telling us that we are stronger than the things that the world puts in our path. Or, finally, we could ask God what is it that we are to learn from this barrier, this situation, that is placed before us.
As I think about these barriers, these things that might cause me to stumble, I have to recall that although Jesus walked the lonesome valley, and often by himself. He didn’t stop. HE moved on to those places where His Father God sent Him. In the sending, He knew that lives would be changed. He knew that people would be healed. He knew that someday, at the appointed time, He, too, would walk in His darkness.
The family that He acquired on His earthly journey, His disciples, brought some darkness into His life. We recall the decision that Judas made. Knowing this betrayal was about to happen, Jesus went away to the garden to pray. He took with Him some of His disciples and asked them to keep watch as He went a little farther to pray. Darkness entered into them in the form of “tiredness”. They could not stay awake. Also, another form of darkness entered into Jesus as He prayed to His Father, “God, if it is Thy will, let this cup pass from me; but not My will, but Thine”.
This darkness that Jesus experienced was the instant of humanness. This is so that we would also know that HE understood and understands the obstacles, the barriers that we go through on a daily basis. He taught us how to take that step of moving from His darkness to His dawn. He cried out to Abba Father.
And then Peter, lived a darkness that led to shame. He denied Jesus, not once, but three times. This darkness was painful because of His love for Jesus. This darkness led him quickly to a place of repentance. This darkness made him remember the WORDS spoken to him by Jesus. Sometimes it takes just a remembering to begin to move to the dawn.
And in our remembering, Jesus shines a light that we begin to see as our awakening, as our dawn. Jesus did not give up when He was challenged. Jesus did not turn away when He faces barriers. Jesus taught us ways to learn and live and move forward.
Jesus spent hours alone with His Father learning and being fed, just as we can do today. And as He taught His disciples and the people in the towns and on the seashore, they, too, began to see a dawn happening. They believed in this man called Jesus. It might have taken a walk on the sea for eyes to be opened. It might have taken speaking to the mighty waves to be calmed for ears to be opened. It might have just taken an outstretched hand of healing to warm the hearts of those standing close by. But through all the works of Jesus Christ, the dawn in many lives began to happen.
As I sit here sharing with you, I’m reminded that even pastors find a way to walk from their darkness to the beginning of a dawn if, and only if, we stop long enough to be in prayer with God.
Lately, I have had phone calls asking if I was okay. I have lived in darkness because that is where Satan wanted me to stay. But oh, let me tell that the God that I serve said, “Daughter, that statement that you have spoken to others is real for you also. Know that I, your Father God, will NEVER leave you or forsake you. I am here.”
I wonder how you would react if you heard God speak them over you. After tears of joy, I didn’t feel that loneliness. After some quiet time, I felt a new love for me from the ONE who matters. After taking a few trips around the dome at South Plains College, I felt my steps a little lighter.
You see, God’s desire is NOT for us to live in darkness, but to walk toward the dawn. God’s desire for all mankind is that we seek Him and know that He keeps His promises. Jeremiah 29:11 (as you know is one of my favorite scriptures) continues to remind me that God has a plan for me, God has a future for me, a future filled with Hope and Joy.
As you travel, not just through this Lenten season, but through life, remember that the darkest hour is just before dawn. His Light, the Light of Christ, will lead you through that darkness and carry you to the light that He has directed you to.
Jesus’ darkness happened so that we could see the dawning of new life. Jesus died on the cross for our sins and we have been promised eternal life. Jesus died and rose again so that we could have eternal life. We don’t get to stay in our darkness, in our sins. We, in our choosing to live for Him, will have eternal life. We get to move from our darkness to glorious light!!!!