This week a man we knew, who served with us for a number of months several years ago, carried out unexplainable evil by taking the lives of his wife, his mother, his father, and then himself. In the process he orphaned four children and left a community in shock.
What can we learn from a situation where no matter how hard we try it remains beyond our understanding? What would possess someone to take such actions? One Scripture came to mind for me and I will use it to make an appeal to all of us.
““The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22-23 NIV
How we view our world is important. In the midst of talking about the power of things, Jesus says that if you keep a healthy, a singular, focused view of life, understanding your world in a good way, light will radiate in your soul. You understand His love for you, His provision for you, His purposes for you. But when your eye is unhealthy, literally evil, things get dark. The word can also mean growing with complications. Relational challenges, compounded with financial challenges, compounded with social challenges, compounded with…… The darkness grows and grows to the point where it is so deep and so dark that it leads to depths of unspeakable evil. It is evident that this is where our friend went this week, all because he allowed his darkness to grow.
My appeal to us all, because this can happen to us all, is that we don’t allow our darkness to grow. The moment the light begins to dim, pause. Ask for help in understanding what God has to say about the issue, shining light on the darkness. Don’t isolate with your thoughts, your fears, your doubts. That is how darkness grows. And hell is described as a place of outer darkness.
Job, who lost his ten children, his business and his health all within hours, all without explanation as to why, went to a very dark place. Here are his words at one point:
““Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment’s joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and utter darkness, to the land of deepest night, of utter darkness and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”” Job 10:18-22 NIV
That is dark. But by crying out to and truly seeking the Lord, light began to shine. And his attitude went from deep dark to this:
“I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19:25-27
A glimmer of hope broke the darkness. And by the end of his book, he saw God in a way and to a depth he had never known Him before. The darkness was dispelled and light filled his life once again.
Please do not allow your darkness to grow. Our darkness, no matter how deep, is never beyond the light of Jesus. Satan breeds darkness to destroy and bring death. Jesus brings light and that light is life!
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