The Unsuspected Darkness
But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5 NKJV)
The extreme fear of the dark is called nyctophobia.
Many of us, especially as children, were afraid of the dark. We were scared about the monsters under our bed, those that lurked just outside our bedroom window, and those hiding in the closet. Strangely enough, when we became teenagers we enjoyed watching horror movies, but always in the dark! Darkness tends to arouse certain emotions within us, and the strange shadows in the darkness can often play tricks on our minds.
If you’ve ever gone into a pitch-dark room and lit a candle, you know that the light from that one small candle will expel the darkness. The more light that is emitted, the quicker the darkness fades away. Darkness is not the opposite of light; darkness is the absence of light.
Full disclosure, I Pastor a church in North Pole, Alaska and I approach all that I do from a Bible-centric worldview. I don’t believe in ghosts, werewolves, or the boggy monster. I don’t believe in bigfoot, although I do enjoy watching Mountain Monsters on TV! I do believe in the existence of a literal Satan, demons (fallen angels), and in spiritual warfare. I look back on the events of what I’m going to share with you over the next several weeks and I see example after example of spiritual warfare.
I wish that I could tell you that I saw these events as being spiritual battles as I went through them. The truth is that I was young and dumb, in maturity and in spiritual maturity. It’s only in hindsight that I realized the truth, and the danger, of what we got caught up in…all in the pursuit of adventure.
More years ago than I want to admit I found myself, and my now lifelong friend Craig, caught up in a darkness that we didn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend, and were completely unprepared to handle. It was truly by the grace of God that we came out of that situation unscathed, and just a little bit wiser. Our eyes were truly opened to the spiritual forces of darkness, and to the power of our great God.
Looking back, this was a seminal moment in my life, and one that I have often thought and reflected on over the decades. I have shared bits and pieces of this story with family and friends, but I have never put all of it together in one place, until now.
I grew up in North Kansas City, Missouri at a time when everybody knew their neighbors and hardly anyone felt the need to lock their doors. Friday nights in the Fall were spent at the High School Football Stadium. Summer days were spent playing in the vacant lots with your friends, riding your bike, and hanging out at the public swimming pool. The biggest trouble that we got into as kids was crashing our bikes while pretending to be Evel Knievel or breaking a window with an occasional errant throw of a baseball. As we got older we learned the art of t-peeing a friends house, and a few of us learned how to take t-peeing to a whole new level!
To say that we were sheltered is a fair statement. Crime was minimal in NKC at that time. The only things to be feared were the neighbors calling your parents and letting them know what you were getting into. We knew it was time to go home when the streetlights came on or when we would hear our mom calling for us from our front porch.
The darkness that awaited us at the end of the driveway was frightful, intimidating, and completely unsuspected. It took us places that we never imagined going, and it exposed us to realities that we were not prepared for.
This experience had a profound effect on strengthening my faith and opening my eyes to the reality of spiritual warfare. I know that some will roll their eyes at what they believe to be exaggerated tales of some long ago memories, and that’s okay. I only know what those of us who were there experienced, and that is the story that I want to share with you.
My purpose in sharing this story with you is to help you understand the reality of spiritual warfare. When I’m done telling the story I’m going to share some of the lessons that God has taught me about spiritual warfare.
I hope that you’ll come back next time for And It Begins.
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