The world feels dark …

Convulsing …

Cold.

Hope is leaking from many hearts …

Confusion runs rampant, bold and quenching.

People have grown inward …

Anxious …

Afraid …

Hard.

Evil steps alongside us on the sidewalk; pulls next to us on the road; sweeps in front of us at intersections.

It’s a dark world on most days …

A world that seeks to overshadow God …

Blot Him out entirely.

Darkness, however is not God’s kryptonite …

It is His workshop.

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. 

Genesis 1:1-3 NLT

It occurs to me that verse 4 might imply to some that God was surprised that the light was good. Do you think He was surprised? I don’t think so … not for a moment. It wasn’t some great experiment where He stepped back and said, “Oh, wow! That’s good.”

Instead, I think of the word “saw” in the context of the man ‘saw’ her home … meaning “escorted, watched over, witnessed“.

God witnessed the light … watched over it … confirmed what He knew all along … that He would breath His Spirit into darkness, and the darkness would change … transform.

I can imagine Him saying, “Yup, that’s GOOD!”

That was His plan … to create goodness out of the void.

And to think … He started with the dark.

God does His best work in the dark

Don’t miss this … humanity itself came from darkness. Darkness and dirt … God used those two ingredients, transforming us too with His breath … confirming what He planned all along and declaring us VERY GOOD.

How sad that humanity seems bent on going back to the darkness, wallowing in the dirt from where we came … afraid of the light … hesitant of the love that our heavenly Father would lavish on us.

Thankfully, the Light is never finished.

The rule of the Roman Empire was a dark time on the earth … morally empty … wars … the cruelty of slavery … oppression … poverty. People cried out … would God ever answer? Would He deliver as He had for Moses … the people trapped in Egypt, up against an immovable sea with a murderous army breathing down their backs? As He did for David who was being hunted by a bloodthirsty, jealous lunatic?

Just like those times … those very dark times … God heard the cries, saw the depth of darkness, and He knew it was time to act. (Ex. 2:25) NIV puts it: 25 “So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them”.

In the time of the Roman oppression, this is how He acted:

In the beginning the Word already existed.
    The Word was with God,
    and the Word was God.
2 He existed in the beginning with God.
3 God created everything through Him,
    and nothing was created except through Him.
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,
    and His life brought light to everyone.
5The Light shines in the darkness,
    and the darkness can never extinguish it.
God sent a man, John the Baptist, 7 to tell about the Light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony.8 John himself was not the Light; he was simply a witness to tell about the Light. 9 The One who is the true Light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

John 1:1-8 NLT (EmphASIS MINe)

It was into this very dark time in history that God came … a time where people had grown dark in their abuses and indifference. It was now that His Spirit anointed His Son and hope was birthed in a way never experienced before.

As if to make the point even more clear, Jesus was born not during the daytime, but at night (Luke 2:8)

How insightful that later in History, Church fathers celebrated the birth of Christ not when He was most likely born (Spring time) but in the heart of Winter …. the darkest time of the year … a reminder of His very purpose … light in the darkness.

And as Jesus left the world … darkness again closed in. (Matt. 27:45)

BUT …

And a very big BUT … the darkness wasn’t the end of the story … a tomb was about to be blown open … angels were set to sing … .

Darkness NEVER gets the last word in God’s plan.

So how do I respond to the darkness around me?

  • Don’t lose heart …
  • Don’t grow bitter … refuse to complain.
  • Remember: God gave us “days” … a cycle of day and night … as a reminder that light will always follow the dark of night.
  • Be willing to be a John the Baptist … speak boldy of the Light that is coming …
  • Don’t be afraid …
  • And most of all …

Remember … God does His best work in the dark.

Thank you for reading Rashellbud. I also have a blog about rural living at www.smallstuffliving.home.blog and hope you’ll check it out.

I know that I have some shy readers who follow my posts on both sites, but who are reluctant to leave comments or “likes”. That’s okay … I still appreciate the times you communicate in other ways that you are following along and like what you read. For those who have signed up to receive notifications and who leave comments … thank you so much! It helps to forge a future for my blogs as the readership noticeably grows.

Joy to all of you … invisible and visible … I am thankful that you are part of my life!