Dark Roads

Does this image look familiar to you? Long drives across unfamiliar territory, hoping and waiting to reach your destination or for the comforting arrival of sunlight to help relieve your uneasiness.
So there I was, all alone on a dark and desolate road, winding my way from the Jacksonville airport to Valdosta, Georgia to surprise my cousins who’d gathered together for the Christmas holidays.

The radio stations that were available were engulfed in static or either just not in my line of listening pleasure. Then I came across one station that was a bit clearer than the others, it was a religious station and just able to make out what I was hearing, I heard “The Christmas story according to Jesus”. I was intrigued. And after about 30 minutes of wonderful, scriptural teaching…I was changed.

It’s easy to get used to daylight. The active hustle and bustle of life in the sun where your expectations of normalcy can feel like “This is how it’s supposed to be.” This also means that we don’t do as well when it’s dark and quiet. When God is silent, an uneasiness starts invading deep down inside. It starts off as a quiet less-detectable panic that works its way up to full-blown petrified . This is not how it’s supposed to be is it? Am I being punished? Did I take a wrong turn? Not necessarily.

You can be exactly in the midst of God’s will for your life while entering dark stretches of silence.

Just look at the Apostles. A few of them were simple fishermen and would’ve probably remained content enough to continue as such but once Christ called them to “follow”, they saw miracles wonderful to tell, and they also experienced imprisonment, beatings and real fear which may have felt dark and confusing.

Even when you consider Christ Himself, those wonderful, Christmas cards that illuminate the magnificence of Advent, also are a precursor to darkness that none of us will ever experience. Yet, “who for the joy that was set before him “ (Hebrews 12:2) went through the darkness, knowing that His end would be eternal and unimaginably glorious light . That truth is ours as well.

Here’s The Word:

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

Colossians 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

Isaiah 59:9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

Darkness can be scary. It would be easier if we could just be a little confused or a little unsure, but it’s hardly ever that easy.
It usually comes with a barrage of mental torments of unsavory possibilities. However, a mark of Christian maturity is expressed in the strong faith that doesn’t waver in darkness. We have Truth, and that truth is enough light to always lead the way through dark roads.

In Him,
Cros