Made To Move MountainsSample

Day 6

Hoping in the Darkness

Scaling terrifying bluffs and dangling from high cliffs (metaphorically speaking) has stretched my faith and grown my hope and confidence in Jesus more than anything else in my life.

I have been angry and afraid. I have felt hurt and hopeless. I have been uncomfortable and uncertain. My faith has been shaken, but I still believe God is faithful. In his book Moving Mountains, John Eldridge writes, “When we are in the darkness, we begin to feel like we have always been there. But it is not true. David reminds himself that God has been faithful in the past; God will be faithful again. He urges himself to put his hope in God because the morning will come.”

I don’t know what kind of mountain you are facing today—an enormous dream, an impossible disaster, or maybe a dose of both. But I know with certainty that dreams and disasters make room for the divine.

We also remember that if Jesus doesn’t move the mountain or perform the miracle, he is still good. We praise him when he does the impossible, and we praise him when he does not. We are really talking about faith in action. We long for the impossible not because we deserve it. We hope for it because when God moves mountains, he is glorified in and through our dreams and disasters. Faith is the foundation of the Christian life and the means by which all unseen things are tested. Faith means we trust in what God has promised, resulting in a life of faithfulness and perseverance.

When in darkness, I slowly and carefully, with arms outstretched and hands reaching, feel the way in front of me and take one small step at a time. That first step is called hope. According to Anne Lamott, “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”

God, today we sit on a mountainside in the darkness, waiting for the light of hope you will send in the morning. Please give us strength to endure as we rely on your goodness.