“O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill, and to your dwelling.
Psalm 43:3
“The only way out is through.” As I recall, the first time I saw this familiar truism I was in a stationery store. I was scanning the greeting cards. The card on which it appeared may have been in the sympathy section, perhaps it was nestled among the get-well cards, or maybe it was among the cards under some heading like “encouragement to a friend”. Wherever it was, it drew my eye and when I picked it up to view the sentiment inside, I discovered it was blank.
How appropriate. No more needed to be said. That’s it. I can’t offer you anymore than this. What you’re dealing with is hard. We both know this. You’re just going to have to slog through this mess. I respect you too much to attempt to sugarcoat it. Life sucks right now. But I am confident that you’ll emerge on the other side of this swamp knowing something that you don’t know now; you’ll understand something that you will carry with you the rest of your life; you’ll have a resource that you can share with others.
It's a cliché, I suppose. But like all clichés, it is a cliché for a reason. It’s true. Much of life is trouble that we simply need to get through. We pray for deliverance in these times. Like the psalmists, we ask for the “wings of a dove” that we might fly away and be at rest. We cry out for a hand that will lift us out of the waters that have “come up to our neck.” But the wings don’t grow, and we find ourselves with no choice but to swim.
Yet I don’t think God’s word to us in these times is, “O come on, buck up. Deal with this. You can manage.” Rather, I think it is the assurance: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And slogging through the swamps of life with this assurance that God “searches out our path” and is “acquainted with all our ways” provides us with a great deal of help that ultimately gets us through. Knowing that “even the darkness is not dark to God” and that we cannot “flee from God’s presence” is what fosters the hope we need to press on despite the trouble.
“Help!” is an appropriate prayer. “Deliver me out of this mess!” is fair game. But there is another prayer that is, quite frankly, a bit more satisfying to pray. “Send out your light.” Let me know that you are with me. Let me feel your presence. Let me navigate this darkness with the flashlight that only you can provide. Shine your light on this precarious path so that I can plant each step in a secure place. If the only way out is through, then “lighten my darkness and save me from the perils of this night.”
Jesus himself is our trailblazer in this matter of getting through. To follow him is to learn how to navigate a perilous journey that includes a cross. This “pioneer and perfector of our faith” shows us the way through adversity. He reminds us that adversity is not the last word. The last word is love, and it is in that indefatigable love of God that we find the light and the strength to persevere.
David Rohrer
03/28/2022