Out of Darkness, Into the Light

The ever-growing list of men in the entertainment world being called out for sexual misconduct is staggering.

I know sexual misconduct is not new. As long as there have been men and women with dark hearts, there has been a misuse of sexuality. But the list coming out of Hollywood grows longer and longer, and as we sit on our couches watching the stories unfold, we might be tempted to say
How did they get there?

But the truth is, it’s not just in Hollywood.

Too many of us have the misuse of sexuality stamped on our own stories.

And yet the problem runs deeper than neglecting to treat others with respect. It runs deeper than not taking no for an answer. It runs deeper than giving other people the power to determine our worth.

The problem runs to the core of each one of us.

How did we get here?

We are here because we are a people who’ve forgotten.

We’ve forgotten that things done in private always become public. Thoughts lead to clicks, which leads to actions. Which leads to treating others as objects instead of real people.

Excessive shopping leads to maxed out credit cards.
Excessive gambling leads to financial ruin.

Excessive eating in private will show up in weight gain, insecurity, and the way we view ourselves.

There’s always a progression.

Matt Lauer didn’t just wake up one day as the host of the Today show making millions of dollars. His career grew step by step over years – small decisions led the way to big decisions. Just as his career grew step by step, his behavior did as well. A look here, a comment there, letting things go too far, whispers in the dark, led to his current state.

And Glee actor Mark Sally didn’t just wake up one morning with 30,000 pictures of child porn on his computer. It was a progression, one decision at a time, that led to darkness.

A drip that became a stream that grew into a dangerous, raging river.

These men are not alone in walking in darkness. We all have hidden  thoughts and actions that we’d never want brought into the light of day. And we stay in the dark, thinking that no one will ever know, because we’ve become a people who’ve forgotten.

We’ve forgotten that what we consume, consumes us.

If we fill our minds and lives with truth and light, that will consume us. And if we fill our lives with darkness, it will rot our souls.

We’ve forgotten that we weren’t made to live life in the dark.

We were created by the God of hope to live lives of hope. We were made for hope, yet we live in a very broken world, a world that brings pain into our lives.

Our steps into darkness often begin because we are trying to cope with this pain. What starts as a way to numb the pain, grows into a monster, trapping us and adding to our pain.

We feel pain on many different levels, and we work hard to keep from feeling it. We numb it by staying busy, binge-watching Netflix, eating, not eating, drinking alcohol, shopping, work, working out… really, the list is endless. We want to avoid pain so much that we even take good things and twist them to keep numb instead of stopping and looking our pain in the eye.

These ways of dealing with pain sabotage our fight for hope. They sap our strength, distort our view of reality, create a gap between who we are and who we want to be. These ways of dealing with pain keeps us low, vulnerable, and weak.

I have to admit, it’s a brilliant warfare strategy, perfected by the enemy of our souls. He wants to keep us from hope, because that’s where our strength lies. If we are too busy sabotaging our own fight for hope, then we’ll never reach out and encourage others to fight for hope. If he can convince us that we are alone in our struggle, that we are too far gone to change, that we are beyond hope, then he has won.

And the main problem with all this numbing that we do is this truth: We were not made to live life numb. We were made to push through the fear, look our pain square in the eye, and live life in full.

How can we change the tide? How can we become a people who remember who we are and what we were made for?

Truth helps us remember. I am convinced that a steady stream of truth running into our lives, our hearts, and our minds, each and every day, is the only way to combat the lies of our enemy. He has come to kill, steal, and destroy. He is the father of lies, and he whispers those lies to us as long as we will listen.

We begin with the truth about who we are, told by the God who made us and who loves us. As we begin listening to what God says about us, we will begin believing that we were made to walk in the light. And we will gain strength and courage and bring things hidden in the darkness into the light.

When things are kept in the dark, they are made stronger by shame and silence. But when things are brought into the light, healing can happen.

Being known helps us remember.

We are known – to our very core – by Jesus. Even before we know Him, He knows us. And He promises that we will not face our pain alone.

On the podcast This Good Word With Steve Wiens, Seth Haines says this on the episode called Inner Sobriety.

“The foundational question is, ‘Can I sit in my pain and feel it without needing to eat, drink, do whatever, look at porn? Can I sit in that pain, can I invite Christ into that pain and then can I cultivate a prayerful imagination of what it looks like for Christ to walk in that pain with me?’”

Can you imagine Jesus speaking into your pain?  What do you think He would say?

We are a people trapped in the darkness, in need of a rescue.

And through Jesus,  God has rescued us.

He rescued us from the power of darkness because He made us to live in the light. No matter who we are, no matter what we struggle with, we were made to live in the light.

Jesus stands with us when we face our pain. He also provides what we need to face our pain. We feel His love, hear His truth, through the actions of other people- broken, struggling people who are fighting for hope.

When we are hurting we tend to close off from others. Once again, that is exactly what our enemy wants. If we shut ourselves off he can joyfully whisper more lies.  You are alone, he will say. No one understands, no one cares.

But when Jesus sends people who are fighting for hope into our lives, something happens. Something that is beautiful and terrifying simultaneously.

We are known.

These people see us, really know us, still love us, and chase away the lies with His beautiful truth. We are known. We are loved. We are never, ever alone.

Jesus stepped from the perfection of heaven into the broken chaos of this world to walk with us – every single messy step – out of darkness, into the light.