Overcoming the Fear of the Dark

 

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (James 1:2-8 ESV).

 

One of the crossings across the Little Pigeon River in the Smoky Mountains is made from stepping stones. I must say it has been a while since I trusted my balance enough to take this pathway, but it has been placed in a way to make it as easy as possible to cross the cold, rushing water. It is a matter of trusting the people who placed the stones. This is the picture of our reading today. James, the brother of our Lord, indicates that we should be joyful when we face trials since we can know each of them will produce good in our lives. He then tells us not to doubt that truth because we have the ability to ask God for the wisdom necessary to see the pure logic of the promise. I know that’s really easy to say and much more difficult to do.

 

It gets easier with practice. God has a way of changing us deeply through various crisis points in our lives. When God strings together a long series of crisis points they are like these stepping stones. As we take each one successfully we can experience the truth in real time.  Eventually the trail of change-points will lead somewhere, like stepping-stones crossing a river. As we realize this, our collection of snapshot crises starts to become a movie with a story line.

 

All of this is a part of gaining wisdom. God assures us that he has plans for our lives, but it can be hard to tell where those plans might lead. Sometimes it would be nice to have a burning-bush episode like Moses had—something concrete you could see through the fog of life’s busyness (cf. Exodus 3). Sometimes it’s simply because we forget to ask. It’s surprisingly easy to charge into the events of a day without bothering to ask God what he wants from us that day. Sometimes that can prompt God to allow a minor crisis to pop up as a wake-up call to pull our attention back to him. Ask for directions… ask for wisdom. You will not be denied!