“Things don’t look like themselves in the dark.” Well, isn’t that the truth?
Maybe not just as it applies to a spooky hayrack ride around rural Brown County, but as it applies to life!
Darkness provides a cover for things that couldn’t exist in the light. It allows our eyes to deceive us by taking shapes of familiar things, or things we are afraid of. On the hayrack ride, I swore I saw someone standing near the ditch- nope just a tree. Another time I thought I saw someone hunkered down, hiding in the field, only to feel ridiculous when I learned it was a shrub. The darkness affects our perception. We can’t tell the truths from the lies.
Inside of darkness, fear comes along for the ride. Here’s a classic for you: “I’m afraid of the dark”. We’ve all said it or heard it. There is something about thick, pitch black night that can make the hair your neck stand up. You can’t see what’s coming. Your heart races, your breathing quickens. Fear lives in the darkness.
Maybe you’re like me, and you’ve experienced a deep, seemingly endless season of darkness. You’re familiar with the fear, lies, and pain that come with pitch, black nothingness. Things didn’t look like themselves at all in that season- you didn’t look like yourself. As a matter of fact, you search for you, but find nothing. You've exchanged yourself for things you aren't proud of, and now what? Into the darkness.
Or maybe, you find yourself in darkness right now. As you read this, you know you’re participating in things that, in the light, couldn’t survive. The lies, the cheating. Just one more drink. Just one more hit. Just one more video. If someone turned the lights on, you’d rush to cover up. You’d be ashamed about what they saw. What would be people think if they knew? Instead of confession and turning away, you plummet deeper into the false safety and momentary comforts that darkness provides you. At this point in your life, darkness is your friend. Your eyes have adjusted, and it’s not so bad. You’ve adapted your entire life around this "thing"- your marriage, your friendships, your job. I’ve been there. I know how easy it can be to stay there. The light is bright and blinding.
Light provides truth, it exposes and lay bears; darkness cannot exist where there is light.
John writes “God is light: in him there is no darkness at all”. He goes on to say “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives our fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love”.
Inside a relationship with God, there can be no darkness, He is light. Do you know Him? If you do, then why are you still sitting in the darkness? If you don’t, Jesus is the answer.
Jesus is the payment for the darkness and everything that it stands for. He took darkness to the grave, so we don’t have to live in it anymore. Darkness hinders, cripples, and condemns. It convinces us that we are only worthy of punishment. Fear controls us and won’t let us go.
Jesus, the light that “was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched”, He breaks the darkness. Jesus frees, unchains, and calls us not guilty. His death makes us worthy, not because we have asked for it, because he freely gave it.
God provides a cover of truth, freedom, and safety. Darkness cannot live in Him.
God provides comfort, love, and faithfulness. Darkness cannot hurt you anymore.
God provides hope and a future. Darkness cannot continue to convince you that “just one more time” is okay anymore.
You’ve been set free.
