When the Lights Are Out - A Prayer

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.  Isaiah 42:16


Lord, as a leader, what do we do when we feel the sense that the lights are out for more than a night?  When we feel as though we are walking through a dark tunnel and we can not see any end, any light, or any glimmer of you?  What do we do when our season of testing or trials or difficult circumstances never seem to end?


What do we do, when the times we had with you, which were intimate, sweet, and you seem to surround us and then it vanishes like the night?  And it is whisked away in a moment?  What do we do Lord, when all we ever have known seems to fade away, and we are left alone.  Alone with ourselves and our heart.


Will we be choose to be still?  To know you?  To peer within the walls of our heart to see and know what you are doing?  Will we allow the season of darkness to do it's work in us, or will we shut down internally and avoid this most precious season.  A true gift from God.  Will we allow ourselves to be still in the darkness and wait on God, or we will try to find a way to avoid the darkness that plagues us.  Will we allow God to guide us?


I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.  Isaiah 42:16


We wander in the tunnel, looking for something to hold onto.  Something to grab.  A wall, a railing.  Our hearts always want something to cling onto.  We were made for relationship.  We were made for love.  We want something. Oh Lord, allow this season to bring us into stillness.  To the place where we wait on you, to meet with you face to face. To talk to you about the deep things of the heart. (Psalm 27)


Be still, and know that I am God;  I will be exalted among the nations,  I will be exalted in the earth.  Psalm 46:10


My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”  Psalm 27:8


It is in this darkness and in this tunnel where faith is perfected.   Faith is fortified.  Faith grows.  Where a small oak tree becomes a mighty one.  It is when everything we hold dear is taken from us, it is when our faith is tested and the question rises up - will God alone be enough?  Is He my only desire?


Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. Psalm 73:25


Will I trust Him to continue to be faithful and good even when I do not see Him?  Will I trust Him like Job, that even if He chooses to slay me, will I choose to put my hope and trust in Him alone?



Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:5-6


Will I trust Him to deliver me in His timing and in His way?  Will I trust that God knows what is best for me?  Will I trust that if He is allowing this season of darkness, will I know it is for my good and for the good of the Kingdom and those He has called me to lead?  


Will I allow this season to grow my character into His image? Will I allow Him the opportunity to probe into my heart and heal the places of pain, of rejection, of betrayal, of shame, of fear, of self-condemnation and discouragement?  Oh Lord, this place of leadership can be so lonely.  So hard.  Who is trustworthy?  Will I come out of these ashes and blossom, or will I stay withered under this dust?


Will I offer myself up to God in the dark tunnel?  Will I surrender to His perfect will?  Will I surrender to the season and stop wrestling with it in my spirit?  Will I let God, by faith, take me by the hand in the darkness and lead me on?  Even though I have no idea where He is taking me?  Will I allow myself to go, with no idea of the future?  Will I allow myself to rest in the midst of this season of winter?  Will I have the will to push through the lies that assail my heart that say God is not trustworthy, that He is not faithful?


I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.  Isaiah 42:16


No Lord!  It is in those moments when our hearts must rise up and say I will choose to hope in God alone. I will choose to praise His holy name!  I will choose to be His faithful servant.  To love others and to lead well.  I will choose to live transparently with others.  I will choose to grab His hand, and wait patiently for His leading.


I will choose to trust people even though the pain of betrayal still sits like residue in my heart.  I will offer up my pain to you Lord.  I will let you touch the hidden parts of my heart.  I will choose to forgive those who have hurt me and move forward in love and offering my life up as a sacrifice to you and for the sake of others.


I will give my life for the sake of your Kingdom. I will choose to find a friend and share my journey with them.  You have created us for intimate community.  Yes, even as leaders, we were made to walk in authentic community with one another. To share life.  To laugh together.  To cry together.  To pray together.  To war together.  We need to be armor bearers for one another when the warfare increases. We must resist the enemies two biggest temptations that assails a leader: to isolate and go it alone!


It is in this season we must choose to rest and by faith trust when God's presence and His voice seem absent.   We can rest knowing that the season of the wilderness or what some might call a winter is only for a season.  We can rest knowing it is only a chapter in a large book.  The pages will soon turn and we will be in spring.


Lord, it is in this place we have to choose hope, we have to choose you.  As leaders, we have to go to war against the lies of the enemy which would tell us that God has abandoned us and forsaken us.  The lies that whisper to us saying God does not love us nor care about us. We have to throw off the sin, the lies, the snares that try to entangle us (Heb 12:1-2).   Let us find rest and our hope in God alone!


Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.  Psalm 62:5


Oh Lord, why do we, in our human condition blame you?  Why do we equate successes or failures to your love for us?  Why do we equate the praise or rejection of man to your love for us?  Why do we fall into the trap of people pleasing and allow shame and fear come upon us?  Help us Lord, to shake off all that hinders us so we can run the race you have marked out for us.  Come Lord, and empower your leaders.  Oh Lord, help save us from our human condition of unbelief and doubt.  Help us to move from being Christian Atheists, to those who are making huge ripples for your sake.  Allow these seasons of darkness to shape us into being great leaders of faith, of hope, of courage and of compassion.


Oh Lord.  Help all of us today, especially those leaders who are struggling through a season of darkness, or a winter.  Lord, I know this tunnel and I have walked this prayer many times with you.  Help them to find you in the midst of it.  To let go of the struggle to grab onto anything besides you.  Help them to have faith, when faith can't be found.  Help them to know you are after their heart.  You are after the growing and fortifying of their faith.  Let them have hope that when they rise out of this season they will have grown into a mighty, strong oak.  A weapon that has been fashioned by your hands (Psalm 18).  For the winds have blown and caused their roots to grow deep down into you.  Help them to take your hand today!


Lord, if faith is truly is about trusting in what is unseen, then how can faith grow if you are always there and if things always go the way we want them to go?  Faith needs soil to grow and mature.  Darkness is an incubator for faith; it acts as fertilizer in the soil.  For in those moments we have to choose to believe when everything around us denies the reality of God and His faithfulness.  


We have to choose hope, faith and love and keep on walking through the tunnel.  We must not get off the train.  We must not walk away from our faith or our calling.
  
We have to trust that just as winter comes to an end, and spring flowers come back, so too, will this season be like a moment.  Soon, we will be back up and we will look back and see how God used that tunnel to refine us with His goodness and perfected us in His love.  All for the sake of others and for the world who is so lost without Him.