Hearing bad news of tragedy and death is not a good way for me to start my day, as happened this morning. So it was with a lingering sadness that I drove my son to his bus stop. Returning home, I watched as the cars passed me by and wondered how many of the people driving by me are headed for hell and don’t even know it.
We don’t like to talk about that place because it is a horrible place of unimaginable torment, so we don’t even like to think about people going there. Still, scripturally speaking, those who do not intimately know God, and whom He does not intimately know- as in a personal relationship- will not be going to live with Him in Heaven. The only other place to go for all eternity is hell. So as I drove I had a feeling of inability to change their destiny and a strong desire to do something about it, but what? I am just one person doing whatever I am able with the people that surround me.
It was a dark place for me to be when I got home and pondered these deep thoughts. It tears at my heart to think of one person suffering, let alone hundreds or thousands, and I wonder how God survives the painfulness of these kinds of thoughts. The Lord was helping me hang on when in the midst of my dark place the telephone rang. My friend was calling to give me some ‘disappointing’ news. But the call was no disappointment for she ended up reaching in to my dark place and helping me get back to a better place.
I’m sure given enough time the Lord would have achieved the same results, but He put us here on the earth with some pretty remarkable people who are able to touch our lives if we allow them to. He used my friend’s fingers to dial the phone, He used her heart to give understanding, He used her voice to comfort me and her arm to reach out to my dark place, and I’m sure when she called, she had no idea what her call would mean to me.
We aren’t meant to be alone in dark places. Our Creator is with us at all times. (Heb. 13:5) He also meant for us to have others like us in our lives. From the beginning Adam had God. Then Adam had animals around him. But still, God made someone like Adam to be with him. Jehovah did not mean for us to be alone. (…God said, It is not good that the man -lit. human being- should be alone:… Gen. 2:18) Think about the two most important commandments: to wholly love God, and to love others as ourselves. (Matt. 22:37-40) It is not good for us to be alone…
Let each of us be the arm of God reaching out into the community, into the lives of those around us, reaching into the dark places of one another’s lives to show our love and the love of Jesus Christ. Let us remind them, every one, they are not alone for we understand and struggle too. Let us bring comfort as we have been comforted. (2 Cor 1:3,4) Let us not become weary in well doing. (Gal. 6:9) Lord, let us never fail to love for when we love, the dark places aren’t so dark anymore.