Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
7/5/2021
Waiting in darkness, we are not lost and not alone!
July/5/2021
Desk of Dennis Piller
Waiting in darkness, we are not lost and not alone.
My mom, Adele, is still in the hospital and still fighting with a blood clot in her lungs. And even though she is isolated she is not lost and not alone. (We talked about that this morning). We have a very dear friend of ours who told us recently that she had leukemia. They caught it early but what a horrible thing for someone to hear. We lost both my wife’s brother and father to cancer and we understand that deep pit of not understanding. It comes with this sinking feeling that doesn’t seem to end.
But I think it’s to our advantage to remember that seasons of darkness are normal in the Christian life. We certainly try to live above them, avoid them and work like crazy to survive them. But when we don’t succeed and things happen beyond our control we need to know, that we know that we are not lost, and we are not alone… as even the smallest fragment of faith leaves us but it cleaves to the Christ in us.
That’s why I have always loved the transparency of the Bible. The writers did not just write about the good. They laid out the way that it was… the good, the bad, and the ugly. Look at the experience of David in Psalms 40:1- 3
I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock.
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the LORD
and put their trust in him.
The king of Israel is in the pit of destruction and the miry bog… He describes his spiritual condition. But he also said the song of praise is coming, he says, but it is not now on my lips. It is quite obvious he is in a deep pit.
David spoke about this another time in
Psalm 69:1- 2
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
We never forget those pits. We never seem to forget the sense of helplessness and desperation. My mom is in the hospital with a blood clot on her lungs and suddenly air…just air, is worth $1 million dollars. But I must say, she is singing! and believing!
But you don’t have to be 95 in a hospital bed to have these feelings of helplessness, and desperation. How about a parent’s hopelessness because they are at their breaking points with a teenager or the overworked businessman, the outer limits of exasperation for the mother of three constantly crying children, the impossible expectations of too many classes in school, the grinding stress of a lingering illness, the eminent attack of a powerful enemy.
What is that king’s pit to you? It is anything that causes a sense of helplessness and desperation and threatens to ruin life or take it away?
And then comes the king’s cry: “I waited patiently for the Lord: he inclined to me and heard my cry”. I feel one of the reasons that God
loved David so much was that he cried so much.
Psalm 6:6 “I am wary with my moaning’s; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drenched my couch with my weeping”. And then Psalm 56:8 he says, “ you have kept count of my tossing; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” Indeed, they are! Matthew 5:4 “blessed are those who mourn”. I believe it is the most beautiful thing when a broken person genuinely cries out to God in surrender to Him. (Why is that so hard when we realize we are not in control?)
And then after the cry, we wait. “I waited patiently for the Lord”. And this is a critical step for each of us. I believe for the Lord to deliver us from pits of darkness we must learn to wait patiently for the Lord. To rest in him, no matter the outcome. There is no indication of how long David waited. I have known people who have waited for years before they came into his glorious light of healing. Only God knows how long we must wait. The prophet Micah experiences a long and painful waiting. Micah 7:8 – 9 “ I sit in darkness. .. until the Lord pleads my case and… Will bring me out to the light.”
Oh, that we might learn to be patient in the hour of darkness. And I’m not talking about making peace with darkness… Because we must fight for joy. But we fight as those who are saved by grace and held by Christ. (Please know what that means)
The bottom line. It is utterly crucial that in our darkness we affirm the wise, strong hand of God to hold us, even when we have no strength to hold him. Lord help us trust you about all else. Lord help me pray for those in that pit this week that I might be strengthened in my own.
Lauren Daigle Dry bones come alive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XAeyFagceQ
Excerpts are taken from John Pipers Book When the Darkness Will Not Lift.
