B E H I N D / T H E / B A R

Boxes are everywhere.  Furniture has been moved around to make more room for even more boxes.  That’s a pretty exciting thing as we prepare to make our move in the next few days.  When its not exciting is in the middle of the night, as I’m trying to maneuver around the house and suddenly my little toe discovers a big box in the spot where a couch used to be.  It can be hard to navigate anywhere in the dark, especially, when you experience the darkness of uncertainty.

I know of very few people who ENJOY darkness.  In the course of our lives we will all experience some sort of emotional or spiritual darkness.  We are born into the spiritual darkness of sin.  Some people choose to live in that darkness.  Some people live in the darkness of depression.  While others don’t dwell there but often experience dark nights of the soul.  Personally, I’ve found myself gingerly, cautiously walking through dark times of uncertainty as of late.  I’m tempted in those times of darkness to clumsily bump around in my uncertainty, until I get to a place of clarity.   However, this often results in the design of my own faulty plans to get from point A to point B with the least amount of toe stumping possible. And when those faulty plans do not succeed, I’m left in even greater frustration.

Yesterday I had a pretty significant experience while standing in a sea of cardboard.  I felt as if God was asking me the question, “Shannon, what DO you know right now?”  In my daily discussions about the future with Kristia, there are so many questions that arise, to which the only intelligent answer I can give is “I don’t know.”  So this question He was asking me seemed to carry with it a breath of hope.  What do I know right now?  I know that God has told us He wants us to move into the heart of our city, to live among the people that He’s calling our church to reach.  I went through several other things, listing off in my head, of what I knew about the future, and what God had told me at various points over the last few months.  As assurance began to rise up within me, with each reminder of what I did know to be true, I was also reminded of a statement I’ve heard many times before:

Don’t forget in the darkness what you learned in the light.   – Joseph Bayly

If I can remember in the darkest hours of the night, where I’ve placed boxes in my house, so as to avoid crying like a girl when I annihilate a little toe, surely I can also remember in dark times of uncertainty of what God has told me in the certain times of clear light.

So my simple goal for today, as we await the miracles we still pray to see:

Don’t forget to remember.