Working Wonders in the Dark

By Janelle Hill

You may have seen the recent production of La Vita at Chapel on the Boulevard.  In this production we sang the ‘Song of Awakening’ in which were found the words, ‘He’ll find you in the shadows, and He awakens wonders in the dark’.  (Psalm 88:12)

It is interesting how God often calls us to help others from the story of our own lives.  It would be great if our testimony went something like this:  ‘God makes my life nice ALL the time’.  Of course, life is never nice all the time!!

Recently life, for my husband and I, was distinctly not nice.  As a result, we were faced with a crisis about who God is.  ‘Could He really allow bad things to happen when He declares that He loves us?  Maybe God does not really care.  Maybe He does not love us.  Maybe we do not deserve His love.’  These are thoughts that are common to many of us in the midst of trouble, grief and stress.

However, when we have a seeking heart and attentive ears to hear what God really says, we can find a different view of God’s will.

God’s will is much bigger than our time-bound view of life.  We can see only the here-and-now, but God sees much further than this.  The apostle Paul understood this when he wrote that ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed in us’. (Romans 8:18)

So what does God see?  He sees the past and the future.  He knows where we have come from and where we are headed.  He sees both the person He designed us to be, and the person we are now.  He sees the gap between the two.

In all of our lives there are areas of darkness and shadow.  These can be immaturities, lameness, failure, disobedience, unbelief and so on.  This is the darkness of sin.  But there is also the darkness and shadow of difficult times, suffering, stress, or grief.  The Psalmist sang about walking through the ‘valley of the shadow of death’. (Psalm 23)  He also sang (as we noted above) about God Who ‘works miracles in the shadows, and wonders in the dark’.  In our dark times of sorrow and struggle, God wants to bring healing and life to our inner darkness.  It is not that ‘the trials make us stronger’.  No!  Trials simply bring us to the end of our own strength so that we cry out to God for His.  And, praise be to God, He is faithful and hears our cry because He loves us.  Then He gives us grace and strength, and His own very life.  We are not made better persons.  Rather, we are being made into the people God always meant us to be.  Not only this, but our trials and sufferings then bring life to someone else.  The apostle Paul could say, ‘death works in us, but life in you’.  (2 Corinthians 4:12)  What a miracle indeed!  God’s own life found in us, multiplied and overflowing to others!

Jesus said that God ‘sends rain on the just and on the unjust’ (Matt 5:45).  Trials and suffering will come to all of us – Christian and non-Christian alike.  They can be just darkness and shadow in our lives, or they can be the place where God works His wonders.

For further reading, see ‘The Sure Mercies of David’ chapter 4, available at www.visionone.org.au.