Night Lights: Hope for Darker DaysSample

[IMAGE CONTENT] # Facing the Storm Together As you begin this five-day journey, I encourage you to bring any uncertainty, frustration, and pain with you. Denial—however polite or well-intended—has no regenerative power. Though I am deeply concerned about the frailty of our collective faith, honest angst is not the real problem. The authority we have given our feeling and circumstances to shape our God-concept is . God has not changed. But our understanding of who He is and what it means to follow Him has undergone an alarming mutation from the dual toxins of mistaking emotions for devotion and viewing abundance as proof of obedience. Lacking a framework for valuing and processing disillusionment, we assume that spiritual growth prefers the happy day and shuns the not-so-happy night. Consequently, we avoid the night, viewing it as a spiritual- formation misfire or a senseless waste of time and potential. This error is certainly not new, as even a brief reading of the counsel of Job’s friends can confirm. But in any age, when an error is elevated to the status of belief, creed, or doctrine, its power to undermine faith is amplified. Untruth can never heal. And truth—not optimism or daylight—is what genuine spiritual growth craves. Denying the night’s place in our faith silences one of faith’s wisest teachers and creates an unsustainable version of what it means to follow Jesus. So . . . If you are trying in vain to silence the questions, Or find yourself each day just going through the motions. > If it feels like your faith is barely holding itself together, > Or if you have not felt anything in what seems like forever. > If you love God but are unsure if you still like Him, > Or are growing weary of those people who hang out with Him. Please do not bail yet. Join me in hope as we explore spiritual pain. Risk reclaiming the night and reframing disillusionment as an unexpected friend. Your night will not last forever, but within it, there is priceless treasure that is too weighty to be held by sunshine. I encourage you to resist the urge to outrun or outgun spiritual pain by moving faster, singing louder, or working harder to stuff your soul with distractions. Though disillusionment can be profoundly unsettling, the path toward a healthier, hope-filled view of the night is not unknown. A “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) has gone before us. Our generation has simply lost the way in our shared illusion that faith always needs full sun to flourish. > No, the night is normal. > In fact, the night is necessary. Personally, the night is among my faith’s oldest and most generous of mentors.