LET'S TALK ABOUT JESUS
I love people who are fun and upbeat. God has given us these encouragers in our lives for a reason. The reason is: we need them.
We need the encouragers because life isn't always easy. But my question today is, what happens when the encouragers aren't there and we have to walk into the darkness completely isolated from human companionship and comradarie? What do we do when the fog rolls in off of the ocean of circumstance and calamity upon our soul obscuring everything we know and love? What then?
Often in these times of despair and desperation we ask the simple question, "Where is God?" It is a fair question. King David in the book of Psalms asks the same.
However, let's look for a few moments back a little further than David to discover a precious truth.
In 1 Kings 8:12 we read, "Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in the thick darkness."
I saw this verse and my heart rejoiced! God is in the darkness! Oh, not the darkness of wickedness, but certainly the darkness of circumstance and calamity that we often face in life.
Moses met God in the darkness.
Exodus 20:21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
I would note that this is where God gave him important truths and instructions for the people of God. The darkness (although hard for Moses to comprehend and navigate) was profitable and the time spent in the darkness, valuable.
In the book of Isaiah God tells a gentile king named Cyrus that He was going to lead him, use him, and bless him. As we close this short talk together, please notice that there is treasure to be found in the darkness.
Isaiah 45:2-3 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name...
God is light, but sometimes He asks us to meet Him in the thick darkness. There we will hear Him call our name, and there we will find treasure.
- J. L. Homan