We, earthbound people, like new days. We like fresh starts. We like the excitement of them and the promise in them. We like to feel happy and easy feelings. But I’ve been thinking for a while, and am believing even more lately, that we put so much focus on breakthroughs and signs that we fail to see the promise in the dark and difficult. Not just the promise to get through them, but the promise in them. Because they’re hard, we don’t recognize that they are just as much a part of God’s plan as the breaking through. He allows the night to show us things we’d never see in the day, because He loves us too much to keep it from us. Things intimate and precious. Things He doesn’t want us to miss. Things that forge our love and deepen our trust.
Now if I believe that, then when I’m singing and praying to the Way-maker, it’s not only because I need Him to be a way out of where I am, but because I believe He was also the way TO where I am. That THIS is where He wants me right now. Not because I failed. Not because He’s holding out on me. Not because He’s mean. But because He’s birthing the miraculous in me. A God that shines even in darkness is worth the pursuit. Nothing else in this world can do that. The world cannot promise fire by night. The world cannot give hope to what seems hopeless. The world cannot produce purpose from pain. The world can’t take a valley and use it to set our hearts on a mountain.
So many expectations and illusions die in the dark. And they need to. They need to die so we can see rightly. “Perhaps it was the thud of nails pounding into flesh and wood that canceled any remaining expectations of a miracle. Their illusions about who Jesus was were lost before Jesus’ body was laid in the grave.” …But… “faith is not threatened by funerals” (Alicia Britt Chole). Out of the darkness can rise something far better if we choose to see what He’s showing us.
My prayer a few years ago, before this current struggle, was for more of God. It has been my most consistent prayer. In the recesses of my mind, I think I thought that meant more goosebumps, more amazing moments in worship, and more tangible displays of His power. I’m starting to think that truly experiencing more of God is the opposite of those things. Those things aren’t bad…they’re actually quite good, but I’m realizing just how surface they can be. I think the deep knowing is only found by unearthing the treasure of Him in the difficult, lonely, and melancholy. That’s where the richest of wealth is found. It’s not a place I’d willingly venture into on my own. It isn’t sexy. It’s not a bit alluring. There’s really nothing inviting about it until you get on the other side.
I was spending some time talking to the Holy Spirit just a few days ago and wondering if I had yet apprehended more of Him. His answer was an absolute and resounding: “You have. I can now tell you things you never would have understood before. I can share a compassion for others that you didn’t have the capacity to feel. We have shared suffering at a new level, and therefore, we can now share glory in a way we never could have.”
In the light its less difficult to love, to grow, and to stay committed. In the dark, we have to choose those things, and in turn they deepen. They become an unearthed treasure. I don’t think I would have had the eyes to see them as such if not for the dark. He leads us toward the dark because He loves us. It is contrary and even confusing by our way of thinking, but His thoughts are so much higher. So much better. And because He was “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:3), He understands. That is perhaps the greatest of riches…that we recognize His love ablaze in the dark.