Still afraid of the dark

This is an original Facebook note post of mine from three years ago:

Remember when you were a kid and it was normal to sleep with a small light or lamp on? Or maybe your parents kept a hallway light on and your door open just a crack, as to allow the light to illuminate your room just enough so monsters wouldn't come out of the closet or from underneath your bed? I certainly remember as a young boy, I had a vivid imagination and so at night the shadows I saw silhouetted on the walls could be terrifying; especially if I kept in mind the scary things I heard from other kids or adults, usually pertaining to demonic forces. These kept me up at times during nights when my thoughts were overloaded with thoughts that I know now opposed the vindicating power of Jesus. Interesting enough though, the Scriptures often depict darkness as an enemy to the Children of God. Consider a few verses.
-Isaiah 9:2: "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."
-Psalm 143:3: "The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead."
-Romans 13:12: "The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."

I find it interesting that as we grow older, we learn that we shouldn't be afraid of the dark based on the rational reason that there is nothing there that isn't there in the light. As for the physical world this is true, and I think it is appropriate to emphasize this to children at a young age, when darkness is a certain fear. However, children have it right I believe to fear the darkness. The proverb writer puts it this way, "But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble," (Prov. 4:19). According to these words darkness is the realm of the wicked. This suggests that darkness is associated to be evil or has an evil presence within it. I suppose that's what's scary about darkness, even for grown-ups. Take for example a city street at night. If you walk along a sidewalk illuminated by street lights, you are able to see your surroundings. You will be able to see for yourself if the path you are walking is a safe one or not. However, what if you stumble across a dark corner or alley in the city. You have no way of knowing what dangers, if any, are lurking. And, as the proverb suggests, if you happen to stumble across danger, due to the lack of light, you have no idea what the danger is if, for example, vision was the only sense. Because vision is dependant on light, even what brings you security of knowing what danger there is becomes of no use to you.

So I suppose I am still afraid of the dark.

John 3:19-20 says, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed." So, according to this darkness is an appropriate thing to fear, due to the dangers lurking. If one lives in the darkness, that person is unaware of the dangers that are around them. In our gospel message, those dangers are what make up sin, and sin is anything that separates us from God, who is Light. Jesus is light and He exposes that which is darkness, sin in each person's life. So, am I afraid of the dark? Yes. I am afraid of the dark in me, the things that are unexposed, the sins that keep me from living a fuller life in Christ who saves me. I am afraid of the dark, because I know that the light that has dawned is the Light of eternal hope. My prayer is that the Light that shines in the darkness burns brightly in me, exposing the evil in me so that I can be transformed ever more into the likeness of my Lord, Jesus, God of all.

Take 2

I have this run-on habit in thinking that God hasn't and doesn't speak to me. I suppose this could be part and parcel of the feeling I mentioned last week about my not feeling redeemable and acceptable. I suppose that makes sense. If God doesn't find me acceptable why would He think it necessary to reach out to me in a personal way?

I have always had a skeptical mind. Is it a blessing? Is it a curse? I'm not sure entirely. With my skepticism has always come the disbelief or the lack of trust that God would in fact speak to me when I asked Him to. I suppose one has to maintain trust that He exists first of all to carry out hope that He not only hears us, but responds to us as well (see Hebrews 11:6).

So, you can imagine how it could feel like grasping at straws in a whirlwind when you have a hard time accepting God and His acceptance, while having a very juvenile understanding of how He decides to interact with each individual, because, I am told, He interacts with some differently than others sometimes.

 

But if I am to be honest with myself and take time to remember, I should feel obliged to recall that God has in fact interacted with me in a very personal, very real way. Let me list off the vivid ways He has done so.



Jesus put His arm through the loop,
and waiting for my hand to grab His.

I once had the priviledge to practice what's called listening prayer. During this time, the person leading us in prayer asked us to imagine ourselves suspended over the edge of a cliff, holding onto a rope. We were instructed to ask God what our ropes represented in our lives. Mine was courage (and I didn't like that). During this practice we were also instructed to picture Christ somewhere. Jesus was behind me. In my mind's eye, I turned to face Jesus with my rope in hand (I was back on the ground at this point). I then knelt down before Jesus and gave him my rope, which ended up having shrunk in size to the length of my forearm. Our leader asked us to wait to see what Jesus would do with the rope in our imagination. What Jesus did with it was awesome and sobering. He fashioned it into a loop and then put His arm through it to anticipate me placing my hand into His. Amazing.

 

Two other times I can recall God speaking to me through pictures in my mind. Each time was during a time of personal prayer and probably of confession over some bit of regret. The first image God gave me was I was seeing myself in the third person on a mountain top with my arms extended upward. All of a sudden I saw myself dressed in a white robe. The second image happened an extended time afterward. In this image I was watching again from the third person perspective. I saw a crowd of small children walking ahead in the distance. I was only able to see their backs, because they were ascending a path. During this image I saw a little boy, no older than a toddler. This boy was off the path, but was being directed by Christ Himself. Jesus had His palm on the boy's shoulder, encouraging Him on to join the larger group of children to continue down the same path. I believe that little boy was me.


He led me to join His other children.

These images speak to me. If I am wise I will also continue to consider these images from God and nowhere else. These affirm what the Bible says as well about God's acceptance of us. John 1:12 tells us that Jesus has given believers the right to be children of God. The right to be children of God. Just like I was led into the group of other children in the image. Jesus has told me that that is my rightful place, no matter what I think of myself or what anyone else thinks either.

See, I have a way to get down on myself. Recently I have been having a hard time with self-defamation. I have been allowing myself to believe that I can not leave my old self behind, but instead that my old self is my real self. My thought is that if my real self is the one that is sinful, dirty and unacceptable to God, any efforts to live in the New Life (from the New Testament) are faked or put on. But I have to remember that the New Life isn't something conjured up by hard working Christians, it is received by Christians and given by God (Ro. 6:4; 2 Co. 5:17).

Hopefully this song will lift you up, as it does me.

I still need assurance I guess

I wear my heart on my sleeve. I choose to believe that this is a good thing in most situations as I know that I am willing to share about my struggles and get real with people. I think that's what this world needs, more real people.

Anyway, what I need to share is something that seems to me as something I shouldn't have waited so long to fully admit to. There has been a silent belief that I always sort of been aware of in me, but I never really decided to consider it and how it has affected my outlook on life. The silent belief is this: I have for a number of year felt that I am exempt of redemption and grace. This is interesting as I have conveyed the message of Christ's Gospel during most of my adult life at Bible Camp and at youth and Sunday School. But here it is, I admit that I don't think I have completely believed that the story of Christ's love applies to me. I'm not sure how much I accept it now as I write these words. This isn't to say that I reject the Gospel, let me be clear. I guess it's more like I haven't felt as if I have been included in this promise, even after my 27 years of life and my profession as a Christian.

It burdens me to know that there is a barrier in the way somewhere deep in my soul that prevents me from growing in the faith as I would like to. Of course this barrier comes in the form of the belief that I am unredeemable. It cripples me from advancing in my discipleship in the LORD and it in fact keeps me enslaved to the sins I wish to conquer, like sexual lust, pride and criticalness. (This list has more sins that should be attached to it, but I can't bring them to mind at the moment.) So, with this insecurity comes the recurring failures to crawl out of the pit of mire (as David describes in Ps. 40).

Having thought about what has influenced this notion I can't help but recollect the experiences I had growing up. In school, especially after Gr. 2 and on, I found it very hard to keep any friendships. It seemed as though my personality never seemed acceptable by my peers. I could make friends from the start, but they never lasted and by the time I finished Gr. 8 in my middle school I really had no friends at all. In fact, when new kids came into the school doors they were influenced by those in the student body not to "like" me or befriend me because I suppose it was the collaborative belief that it was uncool to do so. As a youngster I was very talkative and socially inept. One's reputation depended on deliberately not being my friend or appreciating me. Unfortunately, due to this experience, I after 15 years am dealing with the echoes of unacceptance and ridicule.

Even now as I look back I can recall that not many people at all in my life, took an invested interest in me. In the context of my primary and middle school years, not many bothered to understand me or to find out what mattered to me; this included some of the teachers. To me it seems as if they merely judged me and wrote me off as annoying, even if they didn't know that that's what they were doing at the time. Now, let me be clear that I hold no disdain or resentment toward any of my middle school peers. In fact, after our years schooling together and having entered adulthood, I have seen some of those relationships strengthen and I really look to the lot of them fondly. None of those peers were tyrants in anyway. They just didn't know what they were doing and didn't understand the ramifications of their actions.

Nonetheless, I live and breathe today with the feeling that I am not quite accepted. This feeling followed me into highschool, where it manifested itself in the way I related to those peers. The same feeling followed me and manifested its way into my experiences in college as well. It seems as though no one tried to dig beneath the skin of who I am, but merely acknowledged my social quirks as displeasant and moved on as if that was all there was about me. Sadly, this was all within the Christian context. If Christians couldn't accept me, how could I be sure Christ would? I now feel as if this was an undergirding issue for me all along, and now it's come to light.

So, my prayer is that during this Christmas season I will enter a time with God where He reveals to me how much He does accept me and considers me a part of His promise. Would you pray for me?

This song has touched me over the last few weeks.

Merry Christmas. May you feel the acceptance and love of Christ this Christmas.