The Right Way, Even Through the Dark

He led them forth by the right way (PSALM 107:7).

Big changes in life often lead anxious believers to ask, "Why is this happening to me?" Like Job we may say, "I looked for light, then came darkness" (30:26); I sought peace, but found only trouble. We may say in our heart, "My mountain stands firm; I will never be moved," but then the Lord hides His face, and we are troubled.

Only yesterday we could, as Isaac Watts wrote, "read my title clear" —today, our confidence is dimmed and our hopes clouded. Yesterday, I could climb to the top of Mount Pisgah, view the Promised Land, and rejoice with confidence in my future inheritance; today, my spirit has no hope but many fears; no joy but much distress.

Is this part of God's plan for me? Can this be the way in which God is bringing me to heaven? Yes, that is exactly the case. The eclipse of your faith, the darkness of your mind, the fainting of your hope-all these are part of God's method of preparing you for the great inheritance into which you will soon enter. These trials are for the testing and strengthening of your faith-they are waves that wash you further up on the rock, winds that push your ship more quickly to harbor.

As the psalm writer David said of the "redeemed of the Lord," may it be said of you: "He brought them to their desired haven" (Psalm 107:30 ESV). By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good, by plenty and poverty, by joy and distress, by persecution and peace—by all these things is your soul's life maintained, and by each of these you are helped on your way. Don't think, believer, that your sorrows are beyond God's plan-they are necessary parts of it.

—Bruce Waltke