Susie picked up her pace. She had spent a longer time in the park than she had planned. Now, the darkness was falling quickly. She had planned to be home while there was still daylight for the road home was dark, lined with many trees that blocked out the street lights. Even as she quickened her footsteps she knew that she would not make it home before the dark. She glanced around nervously. “When darkness falls,” she thought to herself, “everything is different. Danger seems to linger in the shadows of what looks perfectly harmless in the daytime. ‘The Lord is my shepherd . . . .'”
The darkness does fall, doesn’t it? Night follows day.
There is another type of darkness that creeps up on you, sometimes quickly, sometimes suddenly. This is a darkness of the heart that numbs you to what is happening around you. This allows the wrong to go unchecked until it takes on a life of it’s own, destroying what is in its path. How do you know when darkness falls? Here are three clues.
3 Signs that the Darkness is Falling
- You see and/or seek violence, death, and destruction with fascination rather than horror and/or a desire to help. Your heart is not touched. Maybe you can even film a violent beating and death and never feel compassion and move to stop what is happening.
- You prefer to be told a lie than to hear the truth. If you’re not careful, you reach the point where you can no longer accept the truth. Loyalty to a person or group beat out the inconvenient truth.
- God’s standards are disposable when they get in the way of what you want to do or believe. Even God is disposable and there is no fear of God and the consequences of going against God’s righteousness.
What do you do when you realize that the darkness is falling and it is almost here?
You can try to stop it from falling. You can throw up your hands in despair. You can give in to fear. You can check out and get absorbed in your device and/or to the point where you walk into traffic or fall off of a cliff. You can also pray.
When darkness falls, it’s time to pray and pray more.
How Do You Pray when Darkness Falls?
You pray from the heart with honesty and surrender.
Dear God,
it’s getting dark.
Many are already asleep,
blind to the dangers that lurk
in the darkness.
Yet, darkness is light to you
who sees all and
knows all.
And so we turn to you,
asking you to guide us,
to give us wisdom to know
what to do,
where to go,
how to live.
We ask you to take away
our fear of the dark.
Please protect us
through the dark
and keep our eyes on you,
seeking you,
doing what you want us to do.
Cleanse us,
and make us like Jesus Christ
who went through the darkness
into the light.
But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.
So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:4–8).
Get Closer to God and Live with Confidence and Peace
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