(Patience & Obedience On Our Hardest Days)
Scripture Reference: l Peter 2:9 Ephesians 5:8-11 John 8:12
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” 1 Peter 2:9
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” Ephesians 5:8-11
“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12
For some of God’s saints, we tend to have those seasons where the spiritual darkness can rest so thick, and last so long, that normal patterns of patience, waiting on the Lord, and obedience begin to feel futile. This is particularly the case for me, at this time in my life.
I feel like my condition (editor adds: Central Pain Syndrome) has Cynthia and me - and to some extent my doctors - a little perplexed. I’m doing my best to follow the daily regime, taking all my meds, eating right, along with sufficient walking to try and facilitate getting better.
Cynthia has never worked so hard to make sure of these things as well. Nevertheless, practically everyday I have experiences I call “episodes,” - that usually occur late at night or in the early morning hours before I finally crash at 6 am.
These episodes seem to take place when I’m taking a break from my work in the office of writing letters or working on a devotional, and I’m in the living room resting on the couch. I will doze off briefly, and when I come to, It’s practically a feeling of being paralyzed.
For sometimes less than a minute I have no idea where I am, I can’t focus or see anything clearly, and it feels impossible to move my legs and get up. It’s very similar to an episode of vertigo which I’ve had before that sent me in the back of an ambulance to the ER, as I was sure I was having another stroke.
The frequency of these episodes, along with recent deep headaches really have caused me to think that I may not see my 69th birthday. Other than now, I haven’t mentioned this last statement to anyone other than inmates in my letters.
This kind of thinking is happening in light of finalizing all of my final affairs. In the course of two days, we picked out a beautiful, peaceful, cemetery park and in a few short days, thanks to our son Chase, we have one less event to deal with.
Sorry for going off script for a moment, but please keep me in your prayers that God would grant me needed grace, strength and contentment in Him during these times.
I titled today’s devotional “Baby Steps In The Darkness” because there is so much going on in my life, that I don’t have the strength or ability to change everything in the blink of an eye, or in the course of a day or two. I realize that God is calling on me to be patient through all this, and to take baby steps with each new day, waiting on Him to act and move in my life.
I look at all the events in my life as one test after another, as I have a choice as to whether I’m going to throw myself on the grace and mercy of God, trusting him through everyday, knowing that if I do, my faith is further emboldened and I am gaining greater intimacy with the Father.
Sometimes we find ourselves in deep waters, and the tendency is to panic, which can lead us to making wrong decisions or trying to force certain things to happen. You and I must never forget that God is still at work, even though His apparent silence can seem threatening, leading us to believe that we are all alone in our trial.
God expects the same obedience from us while we are in the miry pit just as he does on those days when we find ourselves on the mountaintops.
As I reflect on these past, coming up on ten years, I’m all too aware that there have been times when I’ve prayed and fought temptation, for weeks or months or maybe even years. Sometimes the dark fog has lasted so long that I’ve wondered what’s the point. Why continue meditating on Scripture when little changes?
Why pray when God seems silent? Why obey in the lonely dark when no one seems to see or care? The days have been sunless for so long; why live as if the sky will soon turn bright?
Honestly, not all of God’s people have known such seasons. There are admittedly a small group of believers, that up until this moment in their lives, have actually had very little adversity and sorrow. I always find myself thinking the same thing; “Thats great, - just wait a little longer.”
We all know that life in this world changes on a dime, and in the blink of an eye we can find ourselves drowning in tears. We unsuspectingly never think that the next phone call could be the one that brings us to our knees. Believe me, we know.
But for those who God has called on to endure some kind of affliction, we must NEVER forget that our amazing God has not left us friendless. He is there in the dark, through the dark, and He will stay by our side until once again the warmth of His light shines bright.
Dear friends, we must strive to never forget our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who walk before us, this very day who are experiencing days far blacker than ours, who need our prayers, along with an encouraging hand on the shoulder as they strive toward an obedient torch of faith on the road ahead.
A Lesson in the dark from long ago: Joseph of Arimathea
One such lesson comes from a brother who knew our Savior up close and personal. Joseph’s story takes place on Good Friday, dark Friday, dead Friday. For some time, he had let his hope take flight, daring to believe he had seen, in Jesus, his own Messiah’s face.
But then Friday came, and he watched that face drain into gray; he saw his Lord hang limp upon the cross. And somehow, someway, he did not flee. He did not fall away. He did not sink into despair.
Instead, Joseph of Arimathea “took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus” (Mark 15:43). Three nails and a spear had snuffed out his sun. And without any light to guide him, Joseph still obeyed.
Joseph’s Unlikely Obedience
In this simple account of Jesus’s burial, we find a most unlikely obedience.
First, Joseph was not one of the twelve disciples, whom we might expect to see at such a moment. Until now, in fact, he had followed Jesus “secretly” (John 19:38). “A respected member of the council” (Mark 15:43), Joseph was a disciple in high places, a man who kept his allegiances mostly quiet. Yet on Good Friday, when his allegiance was least likely to do him good, he speaks.
Second, burying Jesus would have cost Joseph dearly. Financially, he bought the linen shroud himself and placed Jesus in a tomb he had just cut — no doubt with other purposes in mind (Mark 15:46; Matthew 27:57). Ceremonially, handling a dead body rendered him unclean. And socially, he embraced the indignity of touching blood and sweat, of bending his grown body under another’s, as if he were a slave or Roman soldier.
Third, and most surprising, Joseph, along with the other disciples, had every reason to feel his hopes crucified, breathless as the body he carried. We have no cause to suspect he saw the resurrection coming. Like the eleven, huddled in that hopeless locked room, he surely expected the stone to stay unmoved.
To be sure, Joseph’s act was beautiful. But by all appearances, it was hopelessly beautiful. Beautiful like a farmer in famine, tenderly planting a seed he never expects to see. Beautiful like the last living soldier, marching into battle alone.
And yet, maybe even then, Joseph’s hope had one more star still shining. And maybe it has enough life to give light to ours. God has shown me just a little of the grace that he poured out upon Joseph of Arimathea.
A Lone Star in the Sky, still shining
Amid all the darkness, a glimmer appears, faint and far off. Joseph, Luke tells us, “was looking for the kingdom of God” (Luke 23:51). He was looking on Friday morning; somehow, he was still looking on Friday evening, even as he held the kingdom’s dead King. What light sustained such a look?
Perhaps Joseph remembered how his father Abraham had believed “in hope . . . against hope” (Romans 4:18). And perhaps he, like Abraham, carried this slain Isaac to the tomb considering, on some dim level, “that God was able even to raise him from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19).
“God’s kingdom often advances most in the midst of unexpected, unlikely obedience.”
Perhaps he recalled how God had lit up black mornings before, raising the sun as if from a tomb. Perhaps he faintly wondered whether this lifter of Lazarus might somehow lift himself. Perhaps he held the shadow of a hope that Jesus was still somehow the Christ, and that the Christ couldn’t stay dead forever.
The Pharisees remembered that Jesus said, “After three days I will rise” (Matthew 27:63); maybe Joseph did too. Maybe he couldn’t forget.
Either way, hope held a few final breaths in Joseph’s lungs, even after Jesus’s had left. So, he put one heavy foot in front of the other. He defied despair, defied his feelings, defied probabilities, and held the man he had followed.
He walked under the gathered darkness of Good Friday, a man weighed down with the world’s dying hope. He took this lifeless King, carefully buried him, and somehow still believed his kingdom would come.
Have you known such a hope, one that meets you on dark mornings and rolls away the covers like a stone? Have you learned to look for the kingdom under the light of the sky’s last star? And if not, can you follow Joseph’s footprints, and dare to obey even when hope seems dead?
Courage to stand strong and keep looking
We might imagine that experiences like Joseph’s have ceased on this side of the empty tomb. While Christ lives, can hope ever seem dead? No doubt, Joseph walked on unique ground. No saint since him has fought to believe and obey under circumstances so dire. None of us has held our Lord’s dead body.
But we should beware of underestimating how confused, futile, dark, and hopeless we can feel, even with Easter behind us. Jesus spoke of dark and cold days to come (Matthew 24:12). Peter wrote of grief and Paul of desperate groaning (1 Peter 1:6; Romans 8:22–25).
At times, the great apostle himself bent down — discouraged, weary, “perplexed” (2nd Corinthians 4:8). Post-Easter, our hope ever lives and reigns, but we cannot always see him. Some nights here seem too dark.
We might wish to walk beneath skies always bright, our hands full of breathing hope, our faith nearly turned to sight. Those days do come and, oh, what a gift they are. Looking for the kingdom feels easy then. So does obeying the King.
Final Thought
For many of us, days will come when we feel more like Joseph, looking for a kingdom we cannot see. Our feelings may tell us the kingdom is dead, just as Jesus’s tomb seemed closed forever. But as Joseph’s story reminds us, God’s kingdom often advances most in the midst of unexpected, unlikely obedience.
The tree inches upward, unseen, from the mustard seed. The leaven spreads silently through the lump. And in the midnight of our obedience, the darkness of the tomb awaits the moment when our lungs will fill again with hope.
So then, with Joseph, take courage. Keep praying, keep waiting, stay obedient and keep looking for the kingdom you cannot trace. Set your weary heart like a watchman on the walls, asking and aching for morning. Obey your Lord in the darkness, and dare to believe that he will bring the dawn.
תגובות