Tell Your Story

You know when you read a story, and it deeply inspires you or completely captivates your imagination, right?  You can relate to the characters, people who, despite their defects, eventually learn from their mistakes, realize their hidden potential, and eventually become the hero.  You discover a cohesive theme throughout the story that ties all the anecdotes together.  You thrill at the adventure and suspense, causing you to wonder what on earth is going to happen next and how in the world could these tangled situations ever be resolved.  You are surprised by plot twists along the way, shocking events that are completely unexpected.  And of course, you love a happy ending when everything puzzling and inexplicable suddenly makes sense. 

So what if part of the story was missing?  Would you want to read a book with the words, Once upon a time . . . they lived happily ever after.  Of course not. That’s not a story at all!

But that’s exactly what happens in real life when you only tell the good stuff.  When you say, Praise the Lord! or God is so good! – the happily ever after part, but skip over the dark and the messy and the tragic and the impossible.  When you leave out your character flaws and fears and heartaches and doubts.  When you jump to the happy ending without ever explaining what you have learned along the way, or without describing the winding road you took to get this place.

Fighting the Darkness

Let’s be honest.  There are some seasons that are just dark.  Seasons when everything in life seems broken and the attacks from the enemy seem to be persistent and unrelenting.  Relationships are strained or altogether broken.  The chains of addictions and mental illness are impossible to break.  The finances are stretched to the very limit.  The medical diagnosis is not good.  The prodigal child has not returned.  And perhaps the most disheartening of all, is that in the midst of all of it, despite our most fervent, heart-felt, tear-stained prayers, God seems to be silent.

It is no wonder that during these seasons of darkness, we are filled with disappointment and discouragement and doubts.  And sometimes, in the bleakest moments, we are tempted to despair.

When everything around us and inside us is dark, where can we find light?  In the middle of the harshest, blackest night, how can find the spark, even the tiniest ray, that will help us keep moving forward, looking to the future with hope?

Romans 13:12 says, Let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.  Cast off the works of darkness.  Perhaps, then, the darkness is not something that we are resigned to endure.  Perhaps the darkness is something we need to fight!  Something we can – and should – cast off!  How do we cast off the darkness?  By putting on the armor of light!

What is the armor of light, and where can we find it? Psalms 119:105 gives us the answer: Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a LIGHT to my path.  It’s his Word!  His Word is light!  Yes, this means that His Word gives us direction and guidance, light for our path. We often read and study His Word, asking for wisdom about what we should do or how we should live or where we should go. But it also means that His Word IS light.  And it gives light – clarity and hope and expectancy into those darkest, most hopeless moments.  When the darkness seems to be winning, when the disappointment and discouragement and doubts close in and threaten to suffocate us, His Word becomes our light. It becomes the source of our faith.

So if God’s Word is our armor of light, how do we put it on?  Ephesians 6:17-18 tells us how:  Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.  When we read God’s Word, when we study it and memorize it, believing that every one of God’s promises are true, it becomes to us a very effective and powerful tool. We can use it just as we would use a sword.  We can wield it against the attacks of the enemy.  We can use it to pierce through the deepest darkness.

When we think, this is impossible!  We pick up that sword and say, with God all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26)  When we feel weak and powerless and paralyzed with fear, we pick up that sword and say, with God we shall do valiantly!  (Psalms 60:12).  When we don’t know what to do or where to go or how to move forward, we pick up that sword and say, Yes, there may be many things I do not know, but I do know that God keeps His promises:  I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.  (Isaiah 42:6)

We say it and we choose to believe it.  And when we do, the light shines into the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.  (John 1:5) When we believe, the light wins!

We live in a broken world.  A world where we do experience affliction and hardship and adversity. We do face seasons of darkness when God seems silent and we are disheartened and discouraged.  

But we are not helpless.  We do not need to despair.  We have a powerful weapon, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. May we use that weapon to cast off the works of darkness.  May we read it and study it and memorize it and meditate on it and hide it deep within our hearts.  May we put on the armor of light!

For it is YOU who light my lamp.

The Lord my God lightens my darkness

(Psalms 18:28)

I Will!

We don’t always feel like reaching for nutritious vegetables.  Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to get off the couch and go to the gym.  We purposefully turn off the screen so that we can climb into bed and get the sleep that our bodies need.  And when we do, when the self-discipline is more powerful than the self-indulgence, when we act in spite of our feelings, we are so much better for it!  We are healthier and stronger and better able to face the daily challenges and responsibilities that lie before us.

If this is true for our physical well-being, how much more is it true for our spiritual well-being.  We may not always feel like praising and worshipping and singing for joy. So often we get into the habit of coming before the Lord with our needs and our requests and petitions – which we absolutely should! – that it is takes an effort, a purpose in our hearts, to enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.  To give thanks to Him and bless His name.  (Psalms 100:4)

Breaking Chains

It is one of those seasons when everything seems impossible.  The circumstances are so overwhelming, so thoroughly insurmountable, there is absolutely nothing I can do.  

Right in the middle of this dark and terrible time, I imagine chains, huge iron chains, breaking apart and falling off. Remember the apostle Peter in that dark prison so long ago?  In the middle of the night, at the very moment that the church is earnestly praying for him, an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in that dark cell. Immediately the chains that bound him fell to the ground and he was set free!

If God can miraculously break the physical chains that held Peter captive in that dark prison cell, surely that same powerful God can miraculously break the spiritual chains that are holding me prisoner in this darkness.