I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by name (ISAIAH 45:3).
"These ancient words leap from the text. What hope and help they give in life's complexities and sorrows!
HOW can there be treasures in darkness, when it is so overwhelming? The astronomers know this pervasiveness as they focus on "dark holes" in space; the anthropologists are aware as they study with a new perspective a dark continent; the theologian perceives humanity - by choice roaming in darkness.
EVEN more benumbing is the darkness that envelopes a Christian in time of tragedy! IS there a treasure to be found when a man's eyes are blasted out, when a child is claimed by death, when a young wife and mother is accidentally killed or when a partner is abandoned?
THERE is but one direction in which to look and that is toward the God-Man whose greatest triumphs came out of darkness! FROM the agony in the garden came the magnificent sacrificial cup! FROM Calvary's place, where nature drew its shroud over the earth, came a cry heard across the centuries - It is finished! FROM the blackness of the tomb sprang resurrection victory. Our blessed Lord found His treasures in darkness!
THIS same Lord said, "Follow me." HE is with us in the crucible of smothering grief or in the narrow aisles of pain, when we stand on cliffs of unbelief or walk in the valley of the shadow of death. He is there in the darkness.
WHERE is this treasure? With joy we exclaim, "The treasure is in the Holy Presence of the Lord!" CURTISS BEDFORD
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