You have probably had the experience of going from a very bright room into a very dark room. Maybe you arrive home late, and after you get ready for bed, you have to tiptoe into a bedroom where someone else is already fast asleep. You find that when you go from the brightness of the hallway into the darkness of the bedroom, you can’t see much. In fact, you are nearly blind.
Why does your sight fail you? Because in the bright room, the pupil of your eye must be very small so it won’t be overwhelmed by light. When you go into the dark bedroom, your pupil needs to adjust—it needs to grow wider to allow more light into it and allow you to see. I’m sure you’ve learned that if you just wait for a few moments and allow your eyes to adjust, you’ll find that you can soon see a whole lot more. It just takes some patience and some adjustment to your new circumstances.
And I think this serves as a helpful illustration of what happens in our lives when we suddenly go from times of joy to times of sorrow. All has been well. Our lives have been good. It has been easy to love God and trust him, to pray to him and sing his praises. And then suddenly we are struck by a great trial or submerged in a deep sorrow. And for a time, it can be difficult to adjust. We struggle to love God and trust him. It’s hard to pray to him and sing his praises. Our lives have been rocked, our faith has been rocked, our relationship with God has been rocked.
An old theologian says, “It is the easiest thing in the world … to trust God when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark and through the dark.” And haven’t you found that to be true in your life? Haven’t you found that it can be a great challenge to relate to God after the sudden loss of a job, to trust him after the sudden onset of a terrible illness, or to praise him after the sudden death of a loved one? I’ve often heard people express that they weren’t angry with God after they endured a terrible shock, but they were hurt by him and confused by what he ordained or permitted. These are understandable responses, of course. We are, after all, only human, and we truly do suffer.
I think what often happens in those times is that our emotions overwhelm us. Our emotions push aside our reason so that we are tempted to trust in what we feel more than in what we know. Yet as much as emotions are a good gift of God, they are not always reliable. Our emotions always need to be informed by truth and subjected to truth, rather than the other way around. So when it comes to our hardest days, one of the greatest challenges is to ensure we are being led by truth instead of emotion, to be led by what we know rather than what we feel.
When it comes to our hardest days, one of the greatest challenges is to ensure we are being led by truth instead of emotion, to be led by what we know rather than what we feel.
For us to be led by what we know, we must have already stored away knowledge that we can draw upon when it’s so desperately needed. We need to have already settled the relationship between God and ourselves, the relationship between God’s sovereignty and the events that transpire in this world, and God’s right and ability to use evil to accomplish what may be very good. These are deep mysteries, but even if we cannot ever hope to plumb their depths, we can certainly have a settled knowledge of them and a deep trust in the God who tells us they are true.
Many times, I have been told that of all the passages in the Bible, Romans 8:28 is one we should avoid in the immediate aftermath of a loss. And while I understand that it is often misunderstood and therefore often misused, I am convinced there are times to use it, though accurately and judiciously of course. I’m convinced it unlocks some of the sweetest truths a Christian can have in those moments of darkness.
From that single verse (“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose”) we can cling to truths like this: God loves me; God has a purpose he is accomplishing in my life and in this world; God is present in the act that caused my sorrow and he is present in the aftermath of it; God is at work in this situation; and God is at work to bring good from it—not necessarily good I will be able to discern on this side of eternity, but the kind of good that will ultimately cause me to bring glory to his name. There is no other verse in the Bible so packed with live-giving, hope-building treasures as this one!
That same theologian, Theodore Cuyler, says this: “Ah! my friends, it is a glorious discovery that we make when we discover God’s hand in an experience of joy or an experience of sorrow. If a fellow-man has done us a wrong, we may kindle into resentment; we may scold at his stupid blunder, or vent our indignation at his willful unkindness. But when we come up to face our Heavenly Father and recognize His great over-shadowing hand, then there is nothing for us but silence and submission! Further questionings will do us no good; for God keeps his own secrets. Murmurings will do us no good, but only aggravate our sorrows. Rebellion is ruin. Push as far as we can, press as hard as we may, we cannot get beyond this tremendous truth: God did it, God did it! Grasp that truth, hold to that truth, and open your soul’s eyes to that truth.”
So I suppose my encouragement to you is to make the commitment to fill your mind with the treasures of Scripture—the very treasures so wonderfully packed into Romans 8:28. During the good days, prepare yourself for the bad ones. During the days of ease, look ahead to the days of pain. And as you do so, fill your mind with the kind of deep and necessary truths that will inform your emotions, soothe your soul, and anchor your faith when your whole world has gone from light to darkness and you are waiting to adjust so you can finally see.
