I think we often have a big elephant in the room that is just walked around. Lately I’ve been thinking about this thing, and I call it The Darkness. By The Darkness I mean, the low points of life. In church we may refer to it as the ‘desert’ which stands as a metaphor from the Old Testament story where Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt to be stuck in the desert for 40 years before finally getting to the promised land God had for them. This was a hard time for the Israelites and they made a lot of mistakes in the process.
We often recognize The Darkness, but don’t call it what it is in the middle of it. We, the church/American Culture, live under the automatic assumption that everything is going well. That is a bold statement, but let’s think about this. In my mind one of the most superficial statements anyone can make, (I must confess I often make this statement too) is how are you? Not in the wording, but in what we have made it to mean. How are you, is what you say to someone when you see them, right? How many times a day do you say, “Hey there, how are you?”, “Good, and you?”, “Good.” And end of conversation. Neither party actually gives a rip how the other person is doing, and most often they automatically assume they are doing well, and even replace the how are you, with, “You doing well?” Which just furthers my point that we ignore the not so good moments.
I think we recognize that life has it’s dark moments and points, but we do not want to share or talk about it when we are in the middle of them. I think it is extremely dangerous to acknowledge that dark moments happen, but never actually talk about them when we are in the middle of The Darkness. I mean, when do we need friends most? Do we need friends when we are conquering the world, and hitting every goal we set? Or is it when we are continually failing, and falling, and have no idea where we are going in life, or don’t know how we are going to recover from our latest and greatest failure as we hit what seems like rock bottom? I think the times like this are when we feel what I call The Darkness. Which gets even more amplified to the dark side, if we don’t have anyone to share it with and shine light upon our situations and circumstances.
Let us no longer ignore the Darkness, and call it what it is. Let’s not assume everyone is having a great day, because ya know what, somedays do just suck. Open up, and do not get haunted or stuck in The Darkness.
