Hearing in the Dark

 April 11, 2021

“The LORD shut him in.” —Genesis 7:16 NKJV

Have you ever felt shut in? You were careful to listen to God, to do all he commanded; you were told that coming to Christ would give you freedom, but God shut you in. The wide field of opportunities you expected constricted to four walls, a floor and ceiling. God shut you in. You were no longer able to catch the vision you once had; everywhere you turned, you faced another wall you couldn’t get over, under, or around. God shut you in. Instead of the sun warming your face and lighting your way, there was only darkness. God shut you in.

It may have been illness, or a broken marriage, failure in business or school. You battled depression, addiction, the demons of bad advice you followed. God shut you in, and the storm raged around you and within you. You long for, pray for God to open the prison doors, walk you into the sunshine, and smile upon your face. You remember the days when you stood on the mountain top, surveying the blessings God showered upon you. Life was good until God shut you in. 

So you pray. You want to know why—what purpose God has in withdrawing his hand from you.  Why can you no longer see the blue skies, the clouds, puffy and white, the mountains in the distance, and the meadows in between? God has shut you in, and doesn’t seem to be listening to your cry. The tears flow, the heart weeps, the spirit sags. God has shut you in.

But consider this. On a beautiful, sunny day, you can see for miles. In fact, you can see 93 million miles as you gaze at the sun. That’s pretty impressive! But at night when the sun is hidden and darkness lies heavy all around you, you can see the galaxies! Stars and worlds so distant they have to be measured in light years. And you can only see such vast distances in the dark. Sometimes God shuts us in and leads us into the darkness so we can see further than in the day. We love the daytime; we see beauty in its light. But only in the darkness can we even glimpse the majesty of God, the immensity of his ways.

Jesus told his disciples, “What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light.” —Matt. 10:27. There are words Jesus wants to speak that we can only hear in the darkness. If we do not shrink from it, he will reveal his heart in ways he cannot speak to us in the light. The only condition is that what he whispers in the dark, we reveal in the light. If we keep to ourselves what he has spoken, soon he will cease to speak. But if we are willing to enter the darkness and listen for his voice, he will speak, and expects us to do the same, bringing light and life into someone else’s darkness.