Arise… and Shine! (Yes, really)

In the darkness of this past season I’ve been blessed with friends who I know are praying for me and my family, and I am inexpressibly thankful for that – I’m convinced it’s made all the difference. But I also know some people have worried about me, which is sad. I do hope that was not your response when you read yesterday’s post. It’s not about me. Because I may be in a difficult place, but I’ve been through them before: they feel horrid, but God is faithful and ALWAYS brings me through in victory. I just felt it really important to honestly share my own frustrations etc, to encourage others experiencing the same.

When we started sharing with people the miracle that we need, and the opposition coming against us, I declared at the time my trust that God would do it. Since then I’ve received a few comments admiring my faith. But that turned the focus onto me in a way that is not always helpful – and so I felt I needed to show the other side. It’s not that I don’t have faith – of course I do: God has never let me down and I don’t see why He would start now. But it’s not because I’m anything special – it’s because HE IS. Left to myself I would be living in fear and doubt like anyone else in the same circumstances. And this present darkness has merely exposed that, for which I am nothing but grateful. When it’s about me, I’m in trouble. But when it’s all about Him, I know all will be well.

So here it is: part 2, the follow-on to yesterday’s post exploring the felt darkness that many are finding themselves in…

When I spoke to God about it, doing my best not to complain but also wanting to be honest like David when he wrote the Psalms, I asked Him “what do I do when the darkness feels overwhelming?”
The answer He immediately gave was simple (but not easy): “Arise and Shine” (Isa 60:1)

Now I know that sounds flippant to people who are truly struggling, and honestly the way He said it was not flippant – it was full of compassion. He knows our struggles and does not dismiss them. But still His answer remained: “Arise and shine”
“Lord”, I said, “I’m so sorry, but I don’t feel at all shiny. I feel like I’m failing – I don’t know how to shine for you.”

And the answer I perceived to all of us in that place, is beautiful. This is my best attempt to capture it:

“I know, beloved. I know you have done your best to stand and keep standing. I love how My stout-hearted ones have resolutely kept lifting their lamps and straining their eyes into the darkness, desperate to catch a glimpse of My arrival. I AM coming: your hope WILL be rewarded, and those who look, hoping against hope, will be the first to see Me appear. I have seen your pain and the darkness that surrounds you and I have wept for you. I saw this season coming as I hung on the cross, and I died to give you victory over it. You will overcome, for you are hidden in Me, and I have already overcome all things, to the end of this life on earth. Fear not – I have not and will not let you go.

But beloved, I do not ask you to arise and shine in your own strength. I know you feel you have no strength left, and this is not a bad thing. All who desire to be my disciples must embrace their own weakness eventually. For until you realise your own strength is a hindrance to receiving My strength, I will not be able to pour my Spirit through you to the degree that I desire. My strength does not consist of forcing yourself to keep going when you are empty and exhausted. My strength comes from recognising you are empty and exhausted and asking Me for help. It comes from standing on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ and Him alone – not on anything you can do yourself. Receiving my strength is as miraculous as Jairus’ daughter standing to her feet after being declared dead. There was no way she could use strength of will to get up – she was entirely beyond that point. But still My power moved upon her to achieve the impossible. So, My little one, I say to you: arise! Receive the power in my Word of greater truth spoken over you, to do what you cannot do by yourself!

And remember: I do not ask you to shine with your own light. I know you are tempted to feel if you were a better Christian your life would be a light helping others to find their way in the darkness. But truly, beloved, that is self-reliance, which is pride. There is no light in you without Me. The emptiness you have been feeling is because of My grace peeling back the illusion of “good Christianity” to show you what a sham it is. I call you to shine like the moon. I call you to shine in reflection of My true light – the ONLY light that can save the world from the darkness of evil and sin. I call you to shine MY light that is clearly beyond what is humanly possible. This is why you must fix your eyes upon Jesus. If you look at your circumstances, your feelings, your (lack of) power to do what I have called you to do, you will stumble and you will reflect nothing but failure. But if you turn to face Me, like the side of the moon that faces the sun, your life will be transformed from something dull and dusty, to something brilliant that displays light in the darkest night. It’s not your light that you shine, it’s Mine. And My glory obliterates any darkness that tries to remain”

It may have sounded like a rebuke – or at least a correction – but as always with God, it was said with such love and power that it was entirely liberating. Here in the West we are hideously self-dependent, often without even realising it – and God has been working to deliver us, that He may pour more of His power through us for the sake of those around us who so desperately need HIS true light, not our futile self-efforts to be “shiny happy people”, that actually get in God’s way.

When we say “I can’t arise” or “I can’t shine”, that may be an accurate representation of our physical reality. But God is calling us out of our worldly reality and into the Spirit. That cannot be done in and of our SELVES. Only by hearing His call and telling Him we can’t, will we be in the place we need to be to humbly receive HIS power to do it. I can’t pretend I’m there. I’m still in the place of saying “OK Lord, help – show me how to do it in YOUR strength”. But I reckon that’s already a better place than if I was trying to do it by myself.

It’s like it says in these verses that always bless me from Micah 7:7-8…

“But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord,
    I wait for God my Savior;
    my God will hear me.
Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
    Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
    the Lord will be my light.”

Amen.