Trusting God in the “Darkness” (Part 4)

A common problem for many Christians is that they base their beliefs on superstition and legend rather than on scripture. Most will say they have a biblical foundation for their faith, but when questioned with deeper issues beyond simple concepts like John 3:16 they often are lost and can’t explain what they believe nor why. It is my experience that when we can’t explain what and why we believe, we often don’t really believe it. what we say we do. Somehow we have relied on sermons or Christian books rather than digging into the scriptures to discover what is really true and what is just religion or good ideas. 

This is the fourth article on this subject of trusting God in the darkness so if you haven’t read the first three please go back and read them first so you have the reasons for this subject.

We have already discussed in previous articles about walking in times of difficulties and how friends and family often disappoint us during these times.  The hard times often sever those ties if the relationships are mostly surface ones. We talked about how our Christian faith is often rocked when darkness seems to invade our lives and we are forced to consider if we really know God very well and if we even trust Him as we have so often confessed. We talked about the challenge of Isaiah 50:10 where the prophet points to Israel’s walk and not being able to trust God in the darkness. In this article I would like to approach what may be God’s objective for some of us in experiencing periods of darkness in our lives when it comes to God’s lack of his voice, his presence or his provision during these times.

Let me point out that God is more interested in our development and maturity than our comfort. For some this is a hard truth to swallow, but never the less it’s true. We know from scripture that Jesus is the key model of what God is trying to develop in all of us who call ourselves by his name. That is the goal of becoming like Jesus.

Romans 8:29                                                                                                                                                                          

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son,  so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 

The primary goal for all of us who call ourselves Christians should be to “Conform” to the image and likeness of Jesus: His attitude, his motives, and his pursuit of the will of God on earth. As Jesus taught, our first and primary goal in living each day should be to “Seek First His Kingdom” as found in Matthew 6:33. This lifestyle of seeking God’s rulership and guidance should be in our lives regardless of our circumstances.

Secondly, that process of developing a God centered focus and attitude will often include things that we would not normally seek after, namely pain. Pain, although many in our culture don’t advocate pain in the development of our children, does motivate learning when words alone do not. The funny thing is we never outgrow how pain motivates. Our pain could be mental, emotional or physical and it will motivate us to find answers concerning the cause. Scripture says Jesus “Learned” as a boy and eventually a man through pain. He learned to trust his Heavenly Father through pain as a tutor.

Hebrews 5:8                                                                                                                                                                     

Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. 

If Jesus had to learn through suffering as a man we should plan on it happening to us and learn from such pain. Now I am not advocating the practice of seeking to suffer only to work out the “Bugs” in our character. The final test Jesus experienced before starting his ministry was going into the wilderness and experiencing extreme pain and suffering to discover his core values and limitations.

Matthew 4:1-4                                                                                                                                                                   

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”

One of the longest times I fasted was 20 days. I can attest that it was painful but it did produce valuable lessons in my life. For Jesus to walk through the desert alone while fasting I can assure you it was no cake walk and there was pain involved. What I’m trying to get at is pain in this life often happens and we can either use it as “Leverage” for our good or it can and often does become leverage for Satan to use against us to persuade us to abandon our trust in God no matter how strong or weak it is. A favorite passage of scripture in Romans concerns God working things out for our good but does not say God will necessarily help us avoid pain. Rather, he will use our life circumstances for our betterment “IF” we are living for His purposes.

Romans 8:28                                                                                                                                                                      

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 

I think we have these rose-colored glasses that give us a perception of Jesus having a 24/7 conversations with the Father and thus having no pain. As a man who emptied himself of his Godship abilities according to Philippians 2, he was in the same limitations as we find ourselves. Scripture gives us the understanding that Jesus would sacrifice sleep in order to have private time or prayer with Father God. There were times he went hungry. There were times he was confronted with such pain in looking towards the future events that he asked Father God to remove “This Cup” when he was in the garden of Gethsemane.

Matthew 26:36-39        

Then Jesus *came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and *said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He *said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.”And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” 

Here is the main issue of this article. Pain will happen from time to time and God can use these times to help us grow in our character and motives to become like Jesus. During those times it may seem dark but God is really working out his glory through us if we surrender to his working in our life.

Our next article, which will be number five, we will be wrestling with how walking though dark times can teach us valuable lessons we can’t discover any other way.

Questions:

1) Have you experienced a dark time that shook your confidence in God’s love ? You’re not alone in this as I think all sincere believers are meant to be tested in this way. The objective is learning from it and not becoming distant.

2) Are you currently experiencing a dark time? Pray honestly about how you feel and ask God to reveal any hidden areas in your heart.

Pastor Dale