When the Darkness Doesn't Leave
As 2018 comes to a close, a striking reality comes into focus. Christmas is over, but winter is not. You see, each season has difficulties in them, but each season also has their beauties. It’s as if we must bear the difficulties to get the beauties. We endure the summer heat to enjoy the afternoon thunderstorms rolling in. We endure the scorching sun so that we may enjoy the relaxing evenings on the porch with friends.
We endure the bitter cold so that we can enjoy Christmas. We put up with the wind and overcast days to hopefully enjoy the gentle snowfall. Each season has its beauties, but also its difficulties.
But what happens when a season is purely difficulties, and no beauty?
I recently starting reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s a beautiful tale of a land called Narnia, which is under the reign of the wicked witch. When Lucy first enters into Narnia she runs into a young Faun named Tumnus. “It is winter in Narnia,” said Mr. Tumnus to Lucy, “and has been for ever so long…. always winter, but never Christmas.”
Always winter, but never Christmas. The difficulty, but no beauty. You know what feels like this? Sorrow. Loss. Pain. Hurt. Betrayal. Doubt. Depression. Anxiety. Being stuck in sin. Relational strife.
Have you felt that? Like it’s always winter, but never Christmas. In a season of difficulty, with no end in sight? Darkness closing in, no light in the distance?
Every Christian will walk through seasons of darkness. There will be moments that seem so distant from what we thought God intended for our lives. Where do we turn when the darkness lingers? When we are in the difficult season, and no beauty is there to anchor our souls, as if to say, “You can’t get through this winter, for the sunshine is not on the other side.”
Psalm 31:
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my eye is wasted from grief;
my soul and my body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
and my bones waste away.
But I trust in you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
Seems like David knows the weight of darkness.
There’s a line he says here that caught my attention the other day. “Into your hand I commit my spirit.” Do you know who else said these words? Jesus. When He was on the cross, dying. Being beaten and broken for our sins, right before He died. He said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” And then he died.
What do you think those who had followed Jesus thought in that moment? Here is their hope. Their savior. Their leader. The one who had the answers. The one who could fix them, redeem them, save them. And He just dies…
Perhaps they thought it was over. Perhaps the hope drained out of them, like when you were younger and heard it would snow the next morning. You awake in anticipation of a snow day of fun with no school. But when you awake, all you see is grass. Maybe it felt like always winter, never Christmas moment. Always suffering, never peace.
But do you know why this Psalm gives me so much hope in my own darknesses and in the darkness I walk into with others? Because here is the darkest moment of history. The son of God, our own hope, dead. And in the midst of that moment, God is at work. In that moment Jesus felt the darkness, but he also saw the beauty, and that’s why he could commit His spirit into the hands of His father.
Because he knew that God was doing something. He knew resurrection was coming. He knew God wasn’t done. Death and sin wasn’t going to get the last word.
In the darkest moment of human history, when it seems like all hope is gone, God is at work. Our greatest hope (our forgiveness of sin) was born in the darkest moment in history. It wasn’t meaningless. And what is buried underneath the snow, unseen by the natural eye in the brutal winter, is uncovered in the spring. New life is formed.
One cold evening, when Lucy is sitting in Mr. Beavers home, she begins grasping the darkness that inhabits Narnia. Mr. Beaver sense her sadness, and sings this song:
“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”
Your spiritual winter will not last forever. If God can work in the darkest moment of human history, where it looks like death and sin won, surely He can work in your own darkness. It doesn’t matter what it’s from. If someone sinned against you, if it was your own sin, or if you simply have no idea, it’s just dark.
The darkness has been the most shaping tool God has used in my life. And that has been the beauty in the difficult seasons. I love Him more. I trust Him more. I treasure Him above anything in this world… because of the darkness I’ve been through. We endure the darkness, because we know He works in it. We know we grow in intimacy with Him in darkness. That’s the beauty of the darkness that makes the difficulties bearable. It doesn’t make it easier, but it does give us hope.
That the darkness doesn’t get the final word in what God is doing.
I’ve learned, that winter is only for a season. Spring is coming. Perhaps not in this life, but the one to come. And I too can commit my life, my pain, my sorrow, my doubts, my insecurities, my darkness, my spirit into His hands. Why? Because I know He is at work. The darkness is not meaningless. He’s using it for purposes I do not presently see. I must work to trust Him.
And when it seems too hard or too dark, I know He is with me. There was a portion of time where Aslan was with Lucy and the kids, but it was still winter. But they were ok because Aslan was with them. And His presence was the anchor that kept them steady, and the hope incarnate that proved spring was on its way.
Spring will come soon my friends. I know some of you are walking through unimaginable darkness right now. Look to Jesus. The one in whom we hope. Whose tasted darkness and can sit with you in yours. Who on the cross, and fully in the age to come, defeated darkness.
Redemption can be found in the most heartbreaking of seasons.
May we pour our lives out for His sake, so that we can plant seeds of spring into our spheres of influence.
Warmly,
Josh
