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(Presented by Lisa Bishop)
Have you ever felt fearful, anxious, or depressed? Overwhelmed by darkness that seems to be surrounding you on all sides? There have been times in my Christian journey that have felt dark. Stretches of days and sometimes weeks or months when weariness has weighed on me. And uncertain and painful times when I have worked hard to muster up hope while clinging to God trying to remember his faithfulness.
Have you experienced that? If you have been following Jesus any amount of time, there will come seasons in your life when the darkness will try to overwhelm you. It’s in those times that choosing a new perspective will pull you through. We don’t like dark seasons. They seem unfruitful and unproductive. But if you try to see darkness with new eyes it can produce hope.
It reminds me of a seed. When you are trying to grow a new plant or tomato garden, what do you do with the seeds? You bury them! The hope of producing something beautiful and fruitful begins with being buried underground and surrounded by dirt. It’s in the darkness that over time the seed sprouts in the soil and starts to rise up, breaking through the surface. What was once buried becomes flourishing and fruitful.
Our seeds of faith are similar. This is when you must choose to see the darkness as a time where God is with you and providing for you in every season, even in the darkness. Because that is who God is. He is provider. So that means that even in the most difficult times there is provision, but it will require a new perspective and hope in the waiting.
Romans 8:26-28 (MSG) reminds us:
“The moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”
Just like the seed of the plant needs to be watered, nourished and exposed to sunlight, so does your faith. To fully experience the hope-filled perspective of dark seasons you will need to nourish your faith by spending time reading the Bible, receiving God’s love, rehearsing God’s truth, and praying prayers of thanksgiving. These practices will be the nourishment, protection, and provision you need for your faith to flourish.
When you feel surrounded by darkness remember that Jesus is the one who is ultimately surrounding you, covering you and hemming you in on all sides. Seeds sprout in dirt. All you need is faith the size of a mustard seed.
(Click here to download the devotional for the entire week.)