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I hate dark days. Does that sound harsh? I mean it. I hate dark days. I’m not talking about the short days of winter that are finally behind us. I’m talking about the dark days when loved ones die. The dark days when everything goes wrong. The dark days when guilt weighs down my soul. The dark days when discouragement clouds my thoughts. Do you have them too? I wish they would never happen. I hate those dark days.
But I’ve noticed something in the Bible: God uses the darkest days to shine the brightest light of his grace. It was when Jacob fled for his life and slept with a rock for his pillow that God showed him the stairway to heaven (Genesis 28). It was the night when the Israelites screamed in terror at the coming Egyptians that God opened the Red Sea and taught his people that he fights for them (Exodus 14).
It was when Elijah stood alone on a desert mountain, depressed and hoping to die, that God confirmed his love and purpose for him (1 Kings 19). It was when Paul begged God three times to take away the thorn in his flesh—the messenger of Satan that tormented him—that he heard God say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Our God has a habit of using the darkest days to shine the brightest light of his grace.
There’s no greater example of that than the dark day we call “Good.” On Good Friday, the sky actually went dark, as if the universe itself were sobbing at the death of God’s Son. Yet, it was on that dark day that God redeemed the world. It was on the day when it seemed like everything was coming undone that God was actually putting everything back together. It was on the day when darkness seemed to win that God was crushing darkness under Jesus’ feet. That’s why we’ve come to call that dark day “Good.”
Our God has a habit of using the darkest days to shine the brightest light of his grace.
God uses the darkest days to shine the brightest light of his grace. He turned his face away from his Son so you can be sure that he will never turn his face away from you. God punished Jesus for the sins of the world so that no matter what you’ve done on your darkest days, you are forgiven. Jesus let the people ruthlessly mock him so you can forever know that you are the beloved child of God.
In the upside-down world of God’s grace for sinners like you and me, there is power in a cross. There is light in the darkness. There is salvation in suffering. “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
That’s our confidence when days are dark. “He gave his Son for me. He gave his Son for me. How could he abandon me now? How could he not be for me? How could he ever stop loving me, even today?”
Dear friends, I still hate dark days, but God uses those dark days to shine the bright light of his grace. The sun shines so much brighter when you’ve passed through the night. Easter shines so much brighter when you’ve stood at the foot of the cross. Jesus enables us to call even the darkest days “good.”
Author: Nathan C. Nass
Volume 109, Number 04
Issue: April 2022
