The light at the end of the tunnel

I love tunnels.  When my eldest son was young, he would ask me to take him through “tree tunnels.”  These were places in the road where the trees from both sides had grown across and intertwined.  It’s funny, but I realize I only love tunnels where I can see the exit on the other side.  I have been through tunnels that are long, and I just pray that my car doesn’t break down or something.  Sounds silly, but hey, we all have our stuff.  I love the light at the other end of the tunnel.  I  just run, or drive, toward the light without looking at the darkness all around me.

We all have “tunnels,” in our lives.  These are times and circumstances where we just can’t bear to look at the darkness.  We feel it would overwhelm us.  Jesus gives us a promise that I’ve only heard one of my Pastor’s ever mention,

“In this world you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome this world.”

(Jn 16:33b)

It’s not a promise many of us would like to embrace, but it comes, it happens, it is unavoidable.

There is no escaping heartache, hardship, disappointment, failure or loss in this life.  It will come, and when it does, it often knocks us off our feet so hard, we just lie there on our backs gasping for breath.  I know, because I spent the large majority of my life trying to protect myself from the things I feared most, but they came.  And as I lay there, thinking this would kill me, feeling, I couldn’t possibly survive this, I came to know the God of Refuge.  I came to know the Jesus who overcomes the world, and all the mean, hurtful and painful things that can happen in it.  I learned that God doesn’t always deliver us from our fears, but through them.  Sometimes we have to walk through the fire.  But with Christ in the fire with us, like those believers in the Book of Daniel, we can come out with no smell of smoke upon us.  Jesus shields us even as He walks through the fire with us.  He carries us, holds our hand, catches us when we faint, breathes for us when we can no longer breathe for ourselves.  These are our tunnel times, and our Precious Jesus is that light at the end of the tunnel.  Nothing can imprison us, no circumstance can undo us, that Jesus can’t overcome for us and in us.  Since He has overcome the world, He has overcome all that the world can do to us.  Nothing is impossible with God.  So just keep walking toward that light at the end of that tunnel you are in right now.  That light is Jesus, and He walks right beside you through it.