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As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Genesis 15:12
It’s during those darkest times of our lives that God often reveals himself. It’s when we are too tired from striving that his strength comforts us. It’s during those times when we can’t see his hand that he reveals himself.
Imagine the scene when God revealed himself to Abram. Jehovah God had promised Abram that his descendants would be more numerous than the sand and that his seed would deliver mankind from their captivity.
God’s promise was sealed with sacrifice but not until Abram fell into a deep sleep and a thick and dreadful darkness encompassed him. It was then, at this darkest time in Abram’s life that God restated his promise.
That’s the way God tends to work. We don’t understand it. It doesn’t always seem real loving for a God who is, in essence love, but it’s the way he works and our trust in him is the foundation on which we enter into the darkness and exit in his timing.
Hundreds of years later, on a stormy Sea of Galilee, a small boat was tossed about in the darkness. The crew was trying desperately to get the boat to shore before the waves broke up the ship and sent them all to a watery grave.
In the midst of the terror, someone noticed a lone figure asleep in the bow. “Jesus!” They screamed over the howling wind, “Don’t you care that we are drowning?” It wasn’t a gentle question. It wasn’t whispered in his ear. It was a scream of terror.
How could Jesus sleep through the darkness and fierceness of the storm? It’s easy to do when you trust the one directing the wind. Complete trust in God allows us to rest in the midst of the most dreadful periods of our lives.
If you are like me, you will admit that most of the time, we lay awake at night because of worry. It could be worry based on our own poor choices. It could be worry over the effect others can have on us. It can be worry over things we know we should have done, or not done, long ago.
Abram, like Jesus, teach us something important for life. During the darkest, scariest, most dreadful times of our lives, our hearts can rest when we completely trust a God who loves us and has promised he will never leave us. EVER.
PRAYER: Father, I confess to you that I’m scared. The things I see in my world, my relationships, and my future are dark and dreadful. Through the power of your Spirit I ask that you would help me rest in you because my trust lay wholly in you for my tomorrows, regardless of my past. Amen.
So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”Romans 8:15
Psychology Today says of guilt, “Guilt and its handmaiden, shame, can paralyze––or catalyze one into action. Appropriate guilt can function as social glue, spurring one to make reparations for wrongs. Excessive rumination about one’s failures, however, is a surefire recipe for resentment and depression.”
Guilt almost always focuses on the negative, even though it can have positive outcomes. We’ve all been there. Dealing with feelings of regret, failure and fear over decisions we’ve made and choices from our past that haunt us daily. Those times when we’ve been awakened in the night by worry or come to a point during the day when we look around ourselves and ask the questions. How did I get here? How will I get out?
Guilt has been used for centuries to control behavior and to protect the status quo. “Wait until your father gets home!” too many of us remember hearing.
“If you don’t behave the police will come and take you away!” (I actually heard a young, frustrated mom say to her very two-year-old acting two-year-old. I shudder to think how that child grew up looking at law-enforcement.)
“If you don’t go to church and read your Bible you will go straight to hell!” (Okay, maybe it was never verbalized like that, but the message was clear.)
God hates divorced people and gay people and anyone that does wrong things. (One of my personal ‘UN’-favorites.)
The most unfortunate thing about guilt is that it has been used for centuries as a motivator by organized religion. I use the term ‘organized religion’ to clearly differentiate those systems from what we commonly refer to Christianity. Christianity can be a religion; in fact most people refer to it as a religion. In reality however, True Christianity is more about relationship than it is about rules and religion and…guilt. Every religion known to man speaks of personal responsibility and punishment. Only Christianity speaks of unmerited love and forgiveness.
The Apostle Paul, the Apostle of grace, writes in his letter to the believers in Rome, ‘We have not received a spirit of fear!’ (My paraphrase) That means fear motivated by guilt and remorse has no place in the heart of a repentant believer in Jesus Christ. The church may wield the sword of guilt to chastise us and keep us in line, but grace trumps that sword.
What a blessed truth. Guilt has no more hold on me, just as a child enjoys all the rights of being an heir. We no longer need to live under the oppressive hold of guilt in our lives. We are free. We are children of God and as such can address the creator of the universe as Daddy. What a blessed promise!
PRAYER: Father God, Daddy. I claim the forgiveness you have given me through your son, Jesus Christ. I will no longer allow guilt or shame to have control over me. I’m your child and eternally thankful for that. Amen.
For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. 2 Corinthians 7:10 (NLT)
It’s hard to let go of things. There’s an age old story about how people used to catch monkeys. The story has several versions and may or may not be true. However, its message is worth a repeat here. In the story a jar or coconut was used to catch a monkey by putting peanuts through the opening. The neck of the vessel was small enough for a monkey to put its open hand in so it could grab the peanuts. However, the opening was too small for it to remove his clenched fist. As the story goes, the monkey would be so intent on keeping its prize (the peanuts) that he would be easily captured with its hand ‘in the cookie jar’, so to speak.
Like the monkey each of us has those things in our lives that are hard to let go of. It could be the pain of rejection; a broken or unfulfilled relationship; the emotional scars of abuse; fear of failure; the loss of a dream or the guilt of our poor choices and mistake ridden past. Reality is, it doesn’t really matter what the ‘peanuts’ in our lives are, until we can let go of them we are trapped.
The writer to the Hebrews relates a similar situation when he encourages his readers to get rid of everything that holds us down. He uses the analogy of a runner getting rid of any extra clothing so that nothing would encumber them. In the ancient Olympic games runners ran nude (or nearly so) in order to be completely free of anything that would keep them from winning.
Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted”. Normally we associate mourning with death and while that is the most severe type of mourning, there are many other ways in which we mourn. Those things we mourn over become the ‘peanuts’ in our lives.
The good news is that Jesus came to give comfort for the things that cause pain; that cause mourning in our lives. Never lose sight of the fact that Jesus Christ desperately wants to comfort you in your pain. He came to earth so that we could have relationship with him, freedom from guilt. His purpose isn’t to laden us with more rules or remind us of our failures. His purpose is to give us freedom.
The problem is those ‘peanuts’. We need to let go of the pain. We need to let go of the anger and resentment. We need to let go of the false belief that we are a failure. We need to let go of the lofty dreams of a fairy tale existence where everyone lives happily ever after. The Apostle Paul tells us that until we let go of those things, God cannot free us.
When we truly let go of our sin and negative feelings, He will come in and comfort us and show us the true meaning of relationship and forgiveness. Let the following prayer be your gateway to letting go and getting life.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus. It seems like I can’t let go of this feeling of guilt, remorse, anger [fill in your own pain]. I try so hard to make the right choices and they blow up in my face. I’m asking you today to forgive me and help me to live for you. Help me change the things that need changing and let go of the things that keep me from life. Amen.
Our God has said: “Encourage my people! Give them comfort. Isaiah 40:1 (CEV)
Where do you get comfort from? For the Christ-follower, the ‘Sunday School Answer’ is Jesus. Okay, we have that one out of the way. Easy enough, right? Not if you are stuck in a marriage that never seems to find the fulfillment you hoped for when you said your vows; not when you struggle with an addiction and find yourself once again suffering from its consequences; not when you are a mother sitting by the bedside of your child or spouse as they breath their last breath; not if you are loading the last boxes onto the moving truck because the bank has foreclosed on your dream home because you lost your job.
It’s at those times that all the ‘Sunday School Answers’ of your past may seem to pale in relation to the pain in your soul. Is God real? Yes, you believe it with all your heart. Does he love you? Certainly. Never a doubt in your mind. Does it take away the knot in your stomach? The knot that seems to be growing so large that it is making it hard to breathe? Not always.
During the darkest times of our lives we don’t need another sermon on God’s provision, we need comfort. We seek comfort in many ways. Some seek it with a new relationship, but new isn’t always better, in fact, second marriages are more likely to end in divorce than first marriages and the chances of success at marriage decrease with every attempt.
Other comfort foods for the soul can be food (leading to guilt and health issues), drugs, anger, withdrawal, depression, religion and a whole list of other attempts at quenching the pain in life.
When you’ve tried all the above remedies for the pain within you it turns out the ‘Sunday School Answer’ really is the best. Sometimes, when we are honest with ourselves, we realize the pain we are experiencing is the result of our own sin. Other times we’ve done ‘everything right’ but our spouse still leaves, our health fails and our bank account disappears.
After years of slavery and exile, Jehovah God tells Isaiah to comfort his people with these words. The trial is over. The penalty has been paid. His words point forward to the restoration of Jerusalem (physical restoration) and the sacrifice of Jesus (restoration of the soul).
If you are struggling with the pain of life let me point you to Jesus. Not the religion of Christianity, but the relationship with a loving Savior who understands your need and longs to comfort the pain in your soul.
If you have ridden out the battle and find yourself on top, remember that those who are struggling with life don’t need another sermon. They don’t need a reminder of their faults. They need the comfort and encouragement that only the grace of Jesus can give them. Please be an instrument of that encouragement. Their pain is great enough.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, I thank you for the blessings you’ve given me. I ask that you empower me with your Holy Spirit to be an encouragment to those who need you so that they may experience the comfort only you can give. Amen.
There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? John 14:2
My daughter is amazing. She’s ten, going on 30 something at times. She’s bright and philosophical and has a heart for people who are struggling with life. She’s always writing down thoughts; paragraphs which seem far deeper than her years. One of her writings included this phrase, “Next time you complain because the shower is cold remember that someone else in the world is saying “Ah, I love this shower. I haven’t had a shower in weeks. They don’t care if it’s cold or warm, they just enjoy the shower.”
It’s easy to get sucked into the mindset that we need to be comfortable, to have a life that is free of pain, free of frustration, free of worry. God’s word tells us over and over again that we shouldn’t expect that kind of existence in this world. Jesus tells us ‘The foxes have holes, the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). He says this in reference to those who want to follow him. Discipleship has no place for those who seek an easy life here on earth.
To follow Christ may mean, we break ranks with the popular notions of our times. Being a Christ-follower means we step outside the realm of political correctness while at the same time exhibiting grace.
That’s the hard news. The good news is this. While we may struggle to find a place of rest here on earth, Jesus is preparing a place for us where we will finally receive what we all really seek in this world, a place called home.
Here we grow weary with the battle. Here we endure the hardship of living in a world that seems intent on destroying all we know is pleasing to our Father. Here we are forced to make difficult choices that may tarnish our earthly reputation. Our sense of belonging can be shattered by misunderstanding and suspicion.
Jesus words still ring true. Don’t be afraid. Don’t worry at the struggles of daily life. There’s a place for you. A place I’ve designed especially for you to enjoy for eternity. In this world we’ll have struggles, but He has overcome the world, and through him we can overcome as well (John 16:33).
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, I strive to live for you every day. It seems as though it gets harder to make the decisions I need to make to follow you in a world intent on self-destruction. I praise you for the promise that I can overcome all that comes before me in your name. I praise you that I have a place with you; a place called home. Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 