Three things to remember in the dark....

Genesis 1:1-2

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.”

There are days where it feels like life has lost its form and is no doubt empty. Sometimes it even feels like the lights have been turned off, it’s dark, and you cannot even see your hand in front of you. We all have days like this, some more often than others. If you’re human, you’ve had a bad day and perhaps even a bad season and if you're REALLY honest, you'll even feel like God has turned off the lights and taken a break from involving himself in your life at all.

Wondering if you can relate? If so, here are three things to remember in the dark...

1. Feelings should guide us. Feelings were given to us by God but feelings should not dictate how we move forward on any given day. The variety of feelings we feel, albeit fear-filled or even fantastic as they may be, we don’t follow our feelings with eyes of fear but with eyes of faith. How so? Because we have, in the pages of God’s love story to you and me, the truth of God’s even present, unchanging and always at work nature providing a more solid footing for us as we move forward into what often can seem like formless, dark, and empty days. We have a community of faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and we can trust that God is near us ready to go to work in us and through us to do fantastic things. So, don't ignore your feelings but allow your feelings to point you to a deeper source and supply of stability and strength.

2. There is a BIGGER story at work. The reality of our humanity as it is, there is a beautiful and even BIGGER reality present in these first verses of the ancient Scriptures that should be recognized. God was not absent in darkness. In fact, many scholars suggest that the entirety of the trinity, the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead, were very much present. The Hebrew word for God, Elohim (pronounced like ӗh-low-heem´), is the plural version for the name God suggesting a community present and at work in the creation of the heavens and the earth. That’s intriguing and encouraging. Not only that, you see the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters getting ready to do something spectacular! Whatever is going on in your world, you have to know that God is up to something BIGGER and BETTER than you may realize. If this is true, wouldn't it worth exploring?

3. God loves to intersect stories. It's just the way God rolls. He loves to take our ordinary lives and intersect with his extraordinary presence. When He does this, and when we allow it to happen, the creation of light and life breaks through. We see it in the beginning pages of the Bible and we see it all the way through just about every narrative with people God chose to use in the Bible. That should encourage us! Why wouldn't God operate the same way in you and me? Again, if this is true, why wouldn't you at least give God a shot at intersecting YOUR story?

Leaning into these three ideas takes time, vision and grace. For me, it's nearly impossible to handle on my own. I've tried. I've failed. I need help.

So, a prayer I often pray on any given day goes like this: "God, help me see that you are here right now. Give me eyes to see what you’re up to in this dark and broken world, in my day, and in my life. Help me to sense, see and believe that all of you is ready to work in and through all of me today. Amen."

Finally, I love this quote I found on this topic - "I want the presence of God Himself, or I don't want anything at all to do with religion... I want all that God has or I don't want any." AW Tozer. American Christian pastor, author, magazine editor, and spiritual mentor.