It doesn’t matter how dark it is around you, how alone you feel, or how lost you think you are, God’s love is able to find you. I have experienced the deepest expressions of his love in the darkest places I’ve ever endured.
In our worst moments, he is there, maybe not in ways we could recognize at the time, nor doing the things we’d prefer him to do. But there nonetheless to do a work far greater than the one we are looking for. I heard Fr. Gregory Boyle, of Homeboy Industries, say on a podcast recently, “If you don’t allow your troubles to shake our faith, they will shape it instead.” I can vouch for that.
In my younger days, difficulties always shook my faith. Since I was one of his, I thought God owed me a pain-free existence and immediate deliverance from all my affliction. Every trial or difficulty challenged our relationship. Either I was at fault for not doing enough, or he let down his side of the bargain. Difficulties led to weeks of personal frustration and struggle.
I now know we are all born into a broken world and were created to endure suffering with him. By finding him inside our pain, we would come to know him as he really is and find his life growing inside of us. In the darkest moment of Sara’s trauma, he was there. In my most excruciating season of loss, rejection, and disorientation, he was there. He wasn’t watching as a detached observer, he was with us inside of it and gave us the critical insight and courage to find our way through it. In doing so, he left us freer, wiser, and more tender.
Next week in Fort Mill, SC, Sara and I are going to be sharing some of our story and how God rescued us in the best of all possible ways from the worst situation we’ve ever been in. We’re calling it, The Deepest Love in the Darkest Place. Even at the moment we might feel most forsaken, as Jesus did on the cross, our Father is doing everything he can to find his way into our heart and open our eyes to his presence.
If we can stop blaming ourselves or God for causing them, our darkest moments become a portal into the wonder and beauty of God’s power and wisdom. Ask him to teach you. The next time you feel overwhelmed, turn to him and ask him to make himself known in the darkness. Don’t look for him to fix the darkness first; he wants to engage you at your lowest place so that you will know how deeply loved you are and that he has to lead you into his kingdom of light even there.
For those following our transcontinental trip, we are now in Anniston, AL, for the next few days. Sunday we’ll been in Atlanta and then it is on to Charlotte, NC. We’ve added some new stops along the way—Roanoke, VA, Charlottesville, VA, York, PA, and Lexington, KY, with a possible stop in Louisville, KY, after that. You can see all the stops we have planned here.
Zoey is now a week beyond her surgery for a torn ACL, and is doing very well, though she has a bit of cabin fever from being so contained. We do not have results on her biopsy yet. Mandy, the seven-month old retriever pup, is really missing getting to hang closely with Zoey, but she’s adapting too.
Sara joins me on the podcast for this Friday at The God Journey, as we talk about the Four Degrees of Love, in our walk with God and in our marriage to each other. It’s drawn from a devotional on The Love of God written by Bernard of Clairvaux back in the 1100s. Thne, Kyle is back the week after!
Thank you.
Looking forward to more.
God bless you and Sara.
The arms of my heart embraced the words “the deepest love in the darkest place” and danced with them under an open heaven, free and fully loved.
As did ours when that phrase came to mind
Without challenge faith is perhaps less .
A pastor friend of mine once said “ Never forget in the light what you learned in the dark.” Thank you for this.