Scripture
Without any light, they feel their way along in darkness. God makes them unsteady like those who get drunk.
Job 12:25, NIrV
Quote
“Feeling are like visitors, they come and go and you cannot always trust them.”
~Moojac
Job is reminding his three friends that God is the source of wisdom and understanding: a part from His light, we stumble in the darkness. The verse above reminded me of Isaiah 50:10…Does anyone among you have respect for the LORD? Does anyone obey the message of the LORD’s servant? Let the person who walks in the dark trust in the Lord. Let the one who doesn’t have any light to guide him depend on his God. God is the source of light. It is He who gives us wisdom and understanding. There are times, even in the life of saints like Job when God does not allow us to understand what is going on. The old preachers called this “The Dark Night Of The Soul.” Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers of all time, battled the dark night of the soul more than once. Dr. Adrian Rogers believed and I concur, “Every man of God will endure the dark night of the soul.” It is a time of testing when all we have is the word of God. Our feelings are no help; we are overcome with sadness, depression and despair. Our world seems to be coming unraveled right before our eyes and it seems like God has forsaken us. Even Jesus endured the dark night of the soul while on the cross, of all places.
Why would God allow such a thing to happen in the life of a believer and especially a preacher? Some things in life can only be revealed by darkness. If it were not for the dark, we would never see the stars. There are some things that God can only teach us through adversity. As a matter of fact, adversity is a better teacher than success. I heard a little poem when I was a child that stuck in my brain; it goes like this…
I walked a mile with pleasure, she chatted all the way;
But I was none the wiser for what she had to say.
I walked a mile with sorrow, never a word spoke she;
But O the things that I did learn when sorrow walked with me.
We are emotional creatures: God created us this way but it is not His will for us to be directed by our emotions. His goal for us is to be “Spirit” led: He wants us to follow His directions and we have a guide to go by, it is called the bible. You don’t need a feeling to do what God has commanded you to do, you simple need faith to obey. These “Deeper Lifers” {Bible Study Freaks} amuse me. They say things like, “There is nothing in my spirit leading me to witness to my neighbor.” What they are saying is, “I don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling about witnessing to my neighbor.” Obedience has nothing to do with a warm fuzzy feeling, it is a matter of faith. If you don’t understand what I’ve said, you have never endured the dark night of the soul. The primary purpose of the dark night is to teach us to rely on God and not ourselves and certainly not our feelings which are fickle and unreliable. The worse thing we can do is to build our own fire and try to create some light. God has a purpose for the darkness: trust Him.
One other note: humility is the foundation of all ministry whether is it preaching, teaching, evangelizing or doing missions. How does God teach us humility? It is certainly not through success. Thank God for problems; otherwise we would be so proud no one could stand us.
I enjoy reading the IMPRIMIS from Hillsdale College and this months article was a speech by Kimberley Strassel columnist for the Wall Street Journal and author of THE INTIMIDATION GAME: HOW THE LEFT IS SILENCING FREE SPEECH. Kim has three small children twelve, nine and five. They argue and fight constantly so recently Kim interrupted one of the arguments and asked them to define “Free Speech.” The oldest begin to recite the constitution which made Kim proud. The nine year old, a girl, said she didn’t understand anything her brother had said and the free speech was “saying anything you wanted, to anybody you wanted, anytime you wanted and anywhere you wanted.” But it was the five year old that stole the show, he said, “free speech is saying anything you want–as long as I like it.” Suffice it to say, the democrats have a five year old mentality when it comes to free speech. They use several tactics to silence the right. They love to play the race card. When we say something they don’t like, they call us racist. They also used the resources of the federal bureaucracy. Obama used the IRS. Over 400 conservative non-profit organizations were audited or harassed by the IRS. The democrats pretended it was all a coincidence until emails were discovered linking democrats to the harassment. Conservative businessmen like David Green were also harassed by the IRS along with many others. When word got out that this was a plan being carried out by democrats to silence the opposition, they had to back off. Bullies don’t like to be exposed. They are cowards who prefer to work in anonymity.
Charlie Thompson carried us out to eat yesterday for Joe David’s B’day which was back in March. The waitress is standing at my right shoulder and I was talking to me. When she asked if we were ready to order, she looked down at me and I began but Charlie, who cannot hear it thunder, began blurting out his order so I just hushed. Mandy thought that was hilarious. Mr. Rude got out ruded.