Skip to main content

 AM I IN THE LIGHT WHEN ALL SEEMS DARK TO ME AT THIS MOMENT?

It is the experience of believers in Jesus Christ that they sometimes come into a time, as they follow Him, a time of what can only be described as a kind of darkness. It is a moment or a season where their conscious awareness of the Lord's presence with them is gone. Note: it is not that the Lord's Presence is gone, only the conscious awareness of His Presence.

Some have called such a season as "the dark night of the soul." 

All sorts of thoughts merged the other day as I read the Words of Jesus in John 8:12, "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

I asked Him what this meant if I felt I was "in the dark". What came to mind was the 23rd Psalm. The LORD is my Shepherd. I am NOT my own shepherd. I don't lead myself if I am His sheep. He feeds me by His Word, waters me by the Holy Spirit, causes me to live a changed and changing Life, one that reflects His righteousness and power to save any who will believe Him. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death fearlessly because He both corrects and protects me because He is with me. 

David knew God's Presence was with him, but now, by His death and resurrection, by grace through faith, Jesus Christ lives IN me. In fact, He IS life within me, not just with me.

Psalm 27:1-2 states, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?"

If the Lord is Life within me, if HE is my light and my salvation (not my circumstances or even my own awareness of things), then I am not walking, never walking in darkness. He is the Light of Life and in Him there is no darkness at all. Therefore, because I am His and He is in me and I am in Him, I have the light of life: Jesus Christ, Himself.

Even if I cannot see where I am going, I am not in the "dark" because He is with and in me, Eternal Light. As His sheep, I trust what He sees and believe He is leading me in paths of righteousness. I trust that HE sees, not what I can or cannot see. He is faithful to lead, guide, protect, correct, nourish, heal, and cause me to grow in His grace regardless of how I feel at any given time.

Even when I feel alone, I am not alone, because He is Life within me. I do not need to fear that, because I haven't any strong awareness of His conscious Presence, He has abandoned me. He is with me and I am His. I never walk in darkness because of Who Jesus Christ is, what He has done and is now living out within me.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

  PRAYER Jesus Christ NEVER taught on what we call "unanswered prayer." James wrote that a divided loyalty between trusting the Lord God for life and at the same time relying on the world's systems to get what you want will result in you not getting anything from God you may have prayed about. God will never reinforce the unbelief that flows from divided loyalty. THAT is not unanswered prayer. That is God saying, "No." to your request. God saying, "No." to your requests is not unanswered prayer. It is His grace. His "No" is just what I would want if I knew what He knows. The Lord also answers with, "Not now; not yet." because we are not yet prepared to receive what we think we need. God works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure. If I am praying for something God wants to do in me and the Holy Spirit is working in me preparing me to receive what God has in store, His "Not yet." is NOT unanswered prayer. As we see...
 HEBREWS 10:1-2, 10-18 "The sacrifices under that system ( the Old Covenant) were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.   If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.   For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.  Under the Old Covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins.   But our High Priest offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.   There He waits until His enemies are humbled and made a footstool under His feet.   For by that one offering He forever m...
HEARING MUST BE UNITED TO BELIEVING Hebrews 3:16-19 “And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard His voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when He took an oath that they would never enter His rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed Him? So, we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter His rest.” I have heard people say, “If I heard the voice of God. I would not rebel; I’d believe.” Others have said, “If I saw a miracle, I’d believe.” We really do not have a grip on the capacity for unbelief that is resident in the human heart and mind. The children of Israel saw God decimate the false gods of Egypt in the plagues He sent through Moses. The Lord God who had called Abraham made sure that Abraham’s children saw that the gods and religious culture surrounding them for 400 years were not gods at all...