Are You Afraid of the Dark?

He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death. - Job 12:22

As you've probably figured out by now, I'm reading through Job during my daily Bible reading.  As always, I'm amazed at the tactlessness of Job's friends, and I identify with Job's roller coaster of emotions.  With one breath, he's worshiping, but in the next, he's cursing.  One moment he's defending God, and the next he's accusing Him.  From faithful to faithless, he swings from one end of the scale to the other.  Ah, a man after my own heart. . . unfortunately.

But in my reading this morning, I was attacked by the first phrase in the verse above.  Those poetic words jumped off the screen (of my tablet) and smacked me across the head.  (For those of you who may be new to my posts, this seems to happen a lot.  Does anyone else out there get attacked by Scripture?)  Anyway, after reading that phrase and re-reading it, I had to force myself to continue the chapter, but my mind would not let go of those words.

In chapter 12, Job is talking to his "friends" (and hey, with friends like that, who needs enemies?), and in verse 22, he is referring to God.  God discovers deep things out of darkness.  So, as Christians, who are we supposed to be like?  God, right?  So does that mean that we should try to discover deep things out of darkness?  I believe we should.  In fact, I think that's the very reason we face trials and dark times.

Have you ever noticed how much we learn during our darkest times in life?  We tend to cling closer to the Father.  We spend more time in His presence.  We devour His Word.  And all the while, we're learning things we never knew.  We see verses in a whole new light.  We understand passages that seemed so vague before.  Because of our circumstances and our frame of mind, things look different than they did in the light.

Our dark times are not meant to be a time of desolation or discouragement, but rather of discovery.  They are opportunities for us to see things like we've never seen them before.  They offer us the chance to learn new truths and uncover sweet promises--to discover deep things out of darkness.  And in doing so, we become more like God.

So, in the end, it boils down to this:  do we want to be like God enough that we're willing to spend some time in the dark?  Now there's a sobering thought for the day, huh?