Reflection to Insight

Life can be a real pain in the butt. Challenge, difficulty, and loss are all problems that we are faced with during our time on this earth. Things can get dark. Things can get scary. Things can be out right depressing. When these moments strike, it’s easy to feel helpless. To want to give up and quit.

Thankfully we don’t have to let the darkness devour us. There are solutions we can turn to for peace and restoration. Jesus is one of those solutions, and the one I personally think is best.

Dr. King said the famous lines “Only in darkness can you see the stars.” These words ring true in a variety of ways. But I think there is a very hopeful spin we can put on this saying when thinking from a faith angle. Sometimes life is filled with so many distractions it’s hard to recognize the Lord moving around us. However, when life gets tough, the light of the Lord shines through all the brighter. That is the hope we can hold onto.

When I think about hardships to come, or the hardships I’ve faced, I find it disheartening. It’s easy to go to a sad place and start worrying about future problems that haven’t arrived, and then be absolutely miserable in the midst of problems that have arrived. But recently I’ve been trying to hold to the belief, that hardship ends up being the set up for Jesus to serve up a miraculous break through.

I’ve been working my way through a devotional by Sarah Young over the last week. I have found a ton of helpful information in the studies. But one that stuck out to me was one that discussed Jesus accomplishing more than we could ever hope or ask for. Sometimes it takes a while for the breakthrough to come. He always hears our prayers, and He listens intently to us because He loves us. But the answer to prayer may not always come in our timing. It will come in His.

The encouragement here is that God’s timing is always perfect. He is all wise, and all knowing. He knows when to give us what we need, at exact the moment we need it. When the break through finally does come, it’s miraculous in ways we couldn’t have imagined before. Our life struggles are simply the stage for Jesus to come through for us even more powerfully.

Ephesians 3:20-21 says – “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

While we wait on His deliverance from whatever we are facing, we can also hold to the fact that He will sustain us. In moments of great fear or devastating depression, the Lord will act as our support. We can run to Him and rest in His loving presence. I know in my own experience I have felt Him so powerfully in some of my lowest moments. I feel Him wrap me in His arms. And while I may not hear it audibly, in my spirit I feel Him saying, “Hold on, it’s going to be okay. I’m right here with you. Just lean into Me. I love you.”

Psalm 46:1-3 – “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”

I think when we sense the Lord in these ways, and we hold to hope for the amazing way He is going to provide for us in murky times, we can shift our focus from one of despair, to one of joy and hope.

I know this is easier said than done. In the heat of trouble it’s not easy to change our mindset.

But if we consistently make an effort to abide in God, and believe that His love can provide for all of our needs, it’ll pay off in the end. The Lord is our bright shining star in the darkest sky.