It was 2 a.m. when the fault line just miles away from our high-rise apartment building forced the ground to separate. As the violent jolting intensified, I jumped out of bed to find my family. Despite the inky darkness, I felt myself down the hall without seeing, yet hearing, smelling and groping past everything. It still remains one of the most terrifying 45-seconds of my life.
Vision becomes keener in the dark.
I learned that lesson in overseas in 1999, but think of it often. Sometimes, the only way that the Father can draw us into using our spiritual eye of faith is to darken our view of the physical.
Some four thousand years prior, Abram had his own experience with seeing through the darkness. “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him…and it came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces (of sacrifice)” (Genesis 15:12,17). It took the darkness of the pit to focus Abram on the true Ray of Light.
Are you currently in dark circumstance? Could it be that God desires to dilate our spiritual eyes in the midst of the darkness for better enlightenment? Faith is the stimulant that enacts spiritual vision.
Circumstances may look grim, but we are people that have built-in “night goggles” to see past the darkness and into His reality. Only spiritual eyes can see through the devastation into His hope.
Father,
I’m afraid of the dark. I’m frightened when life changes unexpectedly and I can’t see the future. I like being in control.
Yet, instead of changing my circumstances, I ask that You change the way I look at them. Give me spiritual vision to see things as You do.
I desire to find Light in the darkness. After all, darkness isn’t dark to You. Teach me how to see like that. Show me how to use the faith lens You’ve fitted just for me. Let me see how to grope in the darkness with the power of hope. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.