He has me facing the cave.
Facing the dark place that has enveloped me in such gross darkness, anxiety, and shame over the last 10 years.
Death.
How do we process and reconcile grief in its many levels and patterns.
We feel an eternal sense of being robbed when death occurs.
Which is odd if you think about it.
Something that is meant to be the most natural thing about life….as natural as being born, doesn’t quite feel right…doesn’t quite feel as though it fits.
Why do you think this is?
I think this is the case, because we were never meant for death.
Perhaps that’s a radical statement for you to hear, or perhaps it’s simply a reminder.
But here’s the cave.
He takes me back to the scene of the crime.
In order for the scene of the crime to never hold power over me.
It may seem painful and even sadistic at first.
But this is what he showed me before leading my heart into this place:
Isaiah 25:7-8 (TLB):
At that time he will remove the cloud of gloom, the pall of death that hangs over the earth; He will swallow up death forever. The Lord God will wipe away all tears and take away forever all insults and mockery against his land and people. The Lord has spoken—he will surely do it!
When God first whispered this to my spirit, it came in the form of a picture. I was out having my quiet time, and once I got still, I saw this picture of Jesus literally swallowing darkness – His mouth was the size of earth and the darkness was thick, but His mouth completely swallowed the flow of darkness.
This made me weep.
The scariest places that we are ourselves are afraid to go to, or are too afraid or prideful to express how fear choke holds us at night before we try and sleep.
But He went there, confronted, and defeated.
He WENT there.
To your dark places. To my dark places.
To the misunderstood places.
The answers are not in us, but in Him first and foremost.
That’s why abiding in His love is our life source.
“I can do nothing a part from the Father” – (John 5:19)
Love in community is powerful.
Love in submission to God is indestructible.
Because true love never fails. It never dies.
True authority in the heavenly realm---waiting for us, first laid out by the grace and love of God, also lies within our ability to abide, to rely on, to trust in, to get quiet with, to joyfully celebrate in, to dance with, to hope in, to confide in, to beseech of, and to listen to and look for God.
Do you remember the story of the blind man that was healed by Jesus?
The story in which Jesus spit in dirt, and rubbed the blind man’s eyes with it. And then sent him to a pool to go and cleanse his eyes in order to see.
There are so many layers to this account, but what struck me years ago in hearing someone teach on this passage, was the fact of spit. Or rather, hearing the sound of someone spitting.
This blind man may have heard spitting in a completely different context as he was known as a beggar and an outcast, basically considered cursed by certain cultural standards.
I can only imagine what the sound of spitting may have sounded like to this blind man, as Jesus manifested a miracle in a very new and strange way.
But Jesus made the sound of spit anyway.
And the scene of the crime doesn’t end there…
This man was still blind until he walked to the pool and washed himself in it… (By prior instructions given to him by this strange Jesus fellow).
This sounds a bit like a cave experience to me.
But the story ends with this man being restored not only physically—being able to see for the first time in his life. But he was reinstated into community as well bringing healing to his heart emotionally.
And in the journey of going to the “pool” which happened to be a very specific fresh water pool, believed to be used by many ancient Jewish people partaking in a religious pilgrimage to the city--- showed the once-blind man, you are made whole in every way possible—even spiritually.
It’s not in avoiding the storm, the cave, or the pain that we rid ourselves of it. Although we may fool ourselves into believing that we are expert managers of our pain or have learned to control it…
But no. It’s not in the avoiding. It’s in the facing of it, head on—but with Christ.
It’s in knowing that His presence is a real thing. Like more real than the breath you breathe.
And that His love and goodness are just as real and tangible.
It’s in knowing He’s already subdued every storm we will ever face and every adversary that will ever come up against us – And it’s in that confrontation that we actually become our true identity as overcomers.
He says walk this way, because I’ve already walked it.
He says go this direction, because I’m already there.
He tells me, Instead of going around the cave, let’s walk through it.
Because I’m already with you.
And I know how this will turn out in the end…
Wisdom’s Knocking:
“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death:
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…”