Truth is truth & that's the TRUTH. [How to find light in the midst of darkness]
I woke up this morning to news that there was another shooting at a concert in the United States. Last evening, at a Jason Aldean concert, there was a mass shooting leaving at least 50 dead and 400 injured. Living in a world that surrounds us with fear, how do we then actively live in freedom?
Freedom from fear can be found in numerous ways, but unless we are placing our hope in Jesus, these are merely forms of distraction; not an actual path to living in freedom.
As a christian, I have been asked many times how can I worship a God who would choose to allow natural disasters, murders, wars, genocide, rape, divorce, and so on. To be honest, I don't have the answer as to why God has allowed disasters on a large scale. I can't explain to you the plan the Lord has behind the sins of others or the injustices that you may face. However, what I know with certainty is this:
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future".
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
The truth that I pray you all take away is that the Lord is a GOOD God. He is FOR you. Yes, we have seen some horrific injustices in history, especially in the past year; yet, truth remains the same. That's the amazing thing about truth--- It is steady. Unchanging. I have heard it said before that truth is subjective. That one person's truth may not be the same as another's. Well, in a world of uncertainty, let me tell you some GOOD news, something you can be SURE of. The Lord's truth is ALWAYS truth. Psalms 30:5 says, "Every word of the Lord proves true".
I have experienced my own fair share of injustices. As a follower of Jesus, these are experiences, memories, past hurts and scars that I need to bring to the feet of Jesus daily. I don't understand how to explain the reasoning behind these injustices, all I know is the hurt I feel as a result, the consequences that I have experienced because of someone's sin towards me. So let me encourage you today, right now, where you are sitting --- If you are grieving over injustices that happened to you, saddened and heartbroken by the horrific tragedies we are witnessing in our world, take a moment to remind yourself of truth.
The truth is this: We live in a broken world. We will experience darkness all around us, at many different times of our lives. Yet, God's word proves true every time. He tells us that we are his children and He loved us enough to sacrifice his own son for us. (If that wasn't a dark time for a father, I don't know what is!) His word tells us that in this world, this life, we will experience trouble and heartache; but we are to FEAR NOT, because our hope is this: HE HAS OVERCOME THE WORLD.
I can't tell you why God allowed a mass shooting last night. I can't explain to you all of God's purposes. However, friends, I can tell you this --- There is light in this darkness. The Lord uses heartache and darkness to draw us closer to himself. He shows us grace by allowing us to see his light in these dark times. We need to CHOOSE to live in the LIGHT and choose to daily fill our minds with God's TRUTH rather than the countless lies the enemy tells us.
It's in these dark times that we tend to forget truth. We often allow the darkness to cloud our thoughts and dictate our feelings, which in turn can dictate our thoughts again.
What we KNOW(the truth) is GREATER than what we feel in the dark times.
What was true in the light is still true in the dark.
