Overcome the darkness
DECEMBER 14, 2007 (FRIDAY) – Yesterday’s blog was about the fact that we are a light for the world because we reflect the light of Christ. We did not say much about the darkness that the light dispels.
“When I was a boy” (an all-time favorite expression of mine that my growing children always echoed whenever I would say it, bracing themselves for a story they had heard many times), I repeat, when I was a boy.. I remember a dark day during World War 2. It was the evening that Houston had a test blackout. Everyone was instructed to turn off all lights to test our civil defense system. If the enemy couldn’t see us, they would have trouble bombing us. So we had the test. Blackout.
I still remember the eerie feeling I had during the blackout. Dark, I mean dark. I went outside to see what I could see, and I saw nothing. Then I noticed the sky began to glimmer with a faint light, which grew steadily brighter. It was a strange light, that seemed to pulse. Then I heard the locomotive coming down the nearby railroad tracks. His headlight was revolving around and around and the searchlight effect produced the pulse. Then the train whistle blasts, one after the other. As he drew nearer, the light was brighter and the whistle louder. Eerie! Scary! The light of the train seemed as bright as the sun, the only light shining in our neighborhood.
Before the train came through, however, the darkness seemed to have a life of its own, reaching out and clutching my throat, daring me to utter a sigh. Spiritual darkness is like that. It’s not just the absence of light; it is a powerful force in the world, always spoiling for a fight, always capturing people and holding them hostage to their own sins, forever pushing us sinners forward to combat the light of God.
The whole subject of spiritual darkness has a power of its own. The more one thinks about it, even trying to be objective, the greater the danger of being influenced by it, hurt by it, captured by it. Satan, the prince of darkness, the god of this world system, barged into the Garden of Eden to end the perfection there, boldly marched up to Jesus in the wilderness and tempted Him, callously rejoiced for moments in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he hoped Jesus would choose His own will rather than that of His Father. Knowing of his arrogance and prideful attempted interference in the mission of the Son of God, do we for one minute entertain the thought that Satan shrinks from flooding our lives with spiritual darkness whenever possible?
You are light. Shine! Dispel the darkness. Resist the devil. Fight your spiritual enemy. Stand strong for Jesus. Put on the whole armor of God and take your stand for Christ, wielding the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and praying constantly. This is serious business. Spiritual darkness is real.