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Glimpses
of God in the Dark
by Sarah Van Diest
“For where
your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34)
You clamber
up the precipice, over slick rock and crumbling gravel.
Struggling,
you reach the peak, and for just a moment, you’re still, standing against the
wailing winds.
The great
expanse of hope lies before you, a vision of a way forward, a way through.
Your spirit
begins to soar on the promise of what you have long sought and waited for.
But too
quickly, abruptly, the moment ends. The winds prevail and unseat your feet.
The
disheartening, downward slide into the dark commences. The view of hope
disappears. Again.
When we’re
deep in the dark, why does it seem as though we get only glimpses of the light?
Why can’t we
hold on to the spark of understanding?
Why is hope,
the way out, so hard to grasp?
And what
makes up those resolute winds whose sole purpose seems to be to keep us from a
clear view?
Whatever
those winds might be, I think I know their nefarious reasoning.
They want to
keep the light of God from reaching us, to hide his glory from our hearts.
But these
dark things are truly blind, as is the master who controls them.
What they
fail to understand or refuse to submit to is the profound truth that our Father
is in all places . . . even in the dark.
The dark is
the nature of this sin-struck world, and while we’re here, the unrestricted
view from the peak is not sustainable.
And our
Father knows this.
We are Moses,
unable to look at God’s face — but just because his face is hidden doesn’t mean
there’s nothing of him to see.
He doesn’t
hide from us. We must learn the art and craft, the skill of finding God in the
dark.
Why Glimpses
of the Light?
To ask, “Why
are glimpses all we see?” reveals the fallen condition of my heart, the
desire for perfection in an imperfect realm.
My heart
remembers a time before it held conscious memory and longs for that
completeness to be restored.
To ask why ignores
the beauty of the glimpse and misses the blessing held within it.
Life without
glimpses and precipices would render our existence vapid and vacant.
Those
fleeting moments help define our unique perspectives and make up our exquisite
differences.
The Father
gives each of us these personal, intimate moments of hope between our spirit
and his.
These
glimpses are, in part, how he breathes life into each heart.
Complaining
that the view is limited, even fickle, is choosing to wallow in the blackness
of the crevice, choosing to forget the glimpse we’ve been given.
What good is
a glimpse if its wonder is lost and forgotten as quickly as the darkness
returns?
Our lives
cannot be lived on those rocky peaks, even though we desire it.
We long for
our Father’s beauty to be all we see and know and experience, and someday we
will live this.
To hold and
cherish the brief moments of something otherworldly, as if his face passed
before our eyes, is to live in the shelter of his grace. Here. Now. Today.
Instead of
asking why glimpses are all we see, we can instead ask in gratitude and wonder,
“Why does he give them to us?”
The sweet
simplicity of the answer is because he is kind.
He knows the
darkness we must endure while we walk this life, but he is full of grace and
generously gives us bright and wonderful sparks of the “more” we long
for.
He fills our
hearts with the treasures of what is in store for us.
Those
glimpses, my friend, are your treasures. Treasure them as the gift they are
meant to be.
Excerpt from God
in the Dark: 31 Devotions to Let the Light Back In.
Sarah Van Diest is a writer
and editor. She’s the mother of two boys, stepmother to three more, and wife to
David. Sarah wrote this book as letters to a dear friend whose life was turning
upside down. Send Sarah your comments at sarahvandiest7@gmail.com.
Order your copy of God in the Dark: 31 Devotions to
Let the Light Back In on Amazon or wherever books are sold.
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