Considerations

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 ESV)

The lights in the eastern half of Bermuda went out the other night at 10pm. My first thought was how many customers would be furious that their A/C would be inoperable on this very hot and humid night. As I opened my sliding door to get some cooler air, I was greeted by a dazzling show of God’s handiwork in the sky! I saw an uncountable amount of stars that I never noticed before in our sky. It reminded me of the one night of Young Life camp in the USA when all lights are turned off across the camp property, resulting in an amazing sky of twinkling lights. In both instances, the magnificent sight of all these stars was only made possible because complete darkness had descended upon us.

Darkness: Opportunity for God’s Goodness

Can good come from darkness? As I looked at the beautiful sky, it occurred to me that darkness can provide an opportunity for good to shine through. That good things can come from dark, scary, inconvenient and painful times. There are numerous stories in the Bible of people who faced very dark times and through them they experienced God’s incomprehensible way of bringing good from it. Joseph, the son of Jacob, has one of the most well known accounts of having a dark season that seemed irreversible as he went from one bad situation to the next more than once. In the midst of it, he could not see what God was aiming at by allowing these hard times. However after the dark season, he could indeed see the purpose of it all as he states in Genesis 50:20 (NLT):

You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. 

Of course the greatest example of how good can come from dark is that of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ; a dark day that began the beginning of God’s plan for man’s redemption. What Jesus’ enemies planned to harm him, God used for the good of the human race to bring about salvation to all. As our focal verse says, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28 NIV)

Darkness: Opportunity to Seek God

Some of the dark seasons are of our own doing and some are from the hands of others. However, if we remain in Him and trust His leading in our lives, He can take these seasons and turn them around to be used for His glory and His purposes. We can learn a lot about ourselves and about our great Father during these times. We can get stuck on complaining about the darkness or we can sit before the Lord and ask Him questions such as these:

• Why have you allowed this to happen to me?
• Is there something I need to learn from this?
• How can I use this dark season to draw closer to you and know you on a deeper level?
• How can you use this experience for my good?

Just simply asking such questions of the Lord about our season of darkness is the start of bringing about good from our experience. It can often take challenging times for us to see our need for God and cause us to run to the feet of Jesus. When life is good and all the pieces are falling into place correctly, our need for Him is not that evident. But just as darkness revealed that twinkling and dazzling sky, so can God use darkness to lead us to the good that awaits us. And as we run to Jesus as the Light we desperately need to help us, this first step alone automatically starts the process of transforming what is hurtful, scary and inconvenient into something that is for our good.