Getting Used To The Dark

by Vance Havner

Some time ago a friend of mine took me to a restaurant where they must love darkness rather than light. I stumbled into the dimly-lit cavern, fumbled for a chair, and mumbled that I needed a flashlight to read the menu. When the food came I ate it by faith and not by sight. Gradually, however, I began to make out objects a little more clearly. My host said, "Funny, isn't it, how we get used to the dark?"

     We are living in the dark. The closing chapter of this age is dominated by the prince and powers of darkness. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. The night is far spent; the blackness is more extensive and more excessive as it deepens just before the dawn.

     However, early Christians set the world aglow because absolute Light was pitched against absolute darkness. The early Christians believed that the gospel was the only hope of the world, that without it all men were lost and all religions false. The day came when the Church and world mixed light with darkness. The Church got used to the dark and lived in it for several centuries, with only occasional flashes of light. Today, too many Christians think there is some darkness in our light and some light in the world's darkness. We half-doubt our own gospel and half-believe the religion of this age. We are creeping around in the dark when we should be flooding the world with light. We need to get our candles out from under bushels and beds, take off the shades of compromise and let them shine in our hearts, our homes, our businesses, our churches, and our communities with that light that sines in the Saviour and in the Scriptures and in the saints.

from Uplook Magazine, August 2000.