You often hear people say “There is a light at the end of the tunnel.” It is often said in the midst of some sort of distress or personal crisis as a way to spur on hope. My question is, what happens when you can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel? When you know you should be hopeful but it is a lot of darkness and you’re not sure how you are gonna get out of this one.
Have you been there? School, a rough season with kids, toddlers, those sleepness nights with an infant, the loss of a loved one, addiction, chronic illness and pain. I have had many of those seasons. It feels bleak, we feel bleak. We are just so tired. What do we hold onto in those times?
As a kid I can remember doing a math problem (I know I said math, don’t check out. I’m going somewhere with this.) It was something like – you have a caterpillar in a jar. If everyday the caterpillar gets two inches up the jar but falls back one inch how many days until the caterpillar is out of the jar? Probably not word for word, but you get the idea. In my kid brain I immediately started thinking that poor little caterpillar is always falling behind after its hard work. Why does he even bother? He is stuck in the jar and all he is doing is exhausting himself. I hated this problem, I all too often felt like that little caterpillar. God brought this back to my recollection many years later and reminded me that the little caterpillar made it out of the glass. He wasn’t the fastest, but he did endure, he was resilient, he was persistent, he did not give up and he made it out of the glass. He probably knew he couldn’t stay where he was because that led to certain death. The only option was to keep going.
We can make it out of the jar too. We gotta know that where we are at isn’t where we were called to stay. We may be tired trying to get out, yet in the midst we need to hold onto the hope of things assured and start moving. Scripture says “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). God never told us we would be able to see all the things we are hoping for, but calls us to faith for those things. We are called to put our whole trust in Him even when we can’t see. We can get tired, but let us not lose our sight to what motivates us to keep going. Let us not forget who we serve.
We are going to have days in our darker seasons where, like the caterpillar, we can’t see what’s on the other side. I want to encourage you to keep moving forward. The enemy wants to discount our steps that move us closer to God. He will tell us that they are “too small” and “they don’t matter” and “we aren’t really getting anywhere.” He will do whatever he can to discourage us and cause us to give up. He doesn’t want us anywhere near God, anywhere near our freedom! We know better so we are gonna keep going. No step we take toward God is too small. Even if we are crawling we are still moving towards Him. Sometimes all we can do is crawl, so friend, CRAWL. I don’t care how you gotta get to the One who gives life, the One who secures our victory and our freedom, you just get there! No matter how small the steps feel, those steps matter.
We have the light of Jesus available to us whenever we want. We don’t need a light at the end of the tunnel when we have the Light Himself. Let’s be that little caterpillar. Let’s be persistent, resilient and let’s endure, never giving up. When you keep your head and heart focused on the God who created you to do hard things and who walks with you through hard things, you will be victorious. God reminds us that we already have victory through Christ. We just need to remain focused and remember the victory that we get to have in Him.
12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
JOHN 8:12, ESV
Don’t give up in this hard season, friend. The Light is with you. This is our assurance. This is our hope.
What is the glass you are trying to climb out of? What keeps you from getting momentum? What areas do you need to surrender to God in this season of life?
I pray God would be the strength of your spirit and drive of your soul to go for what He is calling into or out of today. May you be resilient, persistent, and never give up as you seek out His light. May you walk in your victory and may it be a testimony of God’s goodness to those around you.
- Hope When You’re TiredContinuing to move even when you don’t feel like it.
- Right Kind of DesperateBecoming more desperate for God even in the midst of great suffering.
- A Stirred SpiritSaying “Yes, Lord” to what is coming and what God is doing.
Mrs.RevMom, M.S. 