 Hi, this is Pastor David Rosales of Calvary Chapel of the Chino Valley, California. In the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 11, verse 8, Solomon wrote, If a man lives many years and rejoices in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many, all that is coming is vanity. It's a sad commentary of how today many believe that somehow God and life combine to owe them perpetual sunny days. It's interesting how we desire a long life and pray that our days will be many, but forget that with long life also comes many sorrows. Days of darkness can refer to the time of old age or seasons of sorrow, affliction, loss, or pain. Obviously, the longer one lives, the greater the amount of stormy days that will be endured. It simply goes with the territory and is something that we need to come to grips with. We know this, but sometimes the only thing we want to do is to forget what are called days of darkness. We want to forget those days, put them behind us, simply move on with our lives, and on one level this is understandable. Why dwell on past hurts? Let's just move on, forget those days and leave the past behind. We need to remember that heartache and disappointment often produce the backdrop of what enhances our appreciation of God's blessings and deepens us in our character and refines our faith. The fact is, the longer we live, the more trials and hurts we will encounter, and it is often through these difficult and dark seasons that the light of God's grace shines most clearly and leads us most gently. It's when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death that we truly learn to fear no evil because we discover that God is with us, that His rod and His staff actually comfort us. It is in these times that we learn to cling to His promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. The fact is, fearing and loving the Lord doesn't produce painless living. We all know that sometimes we actually encounter incredible pain and affliction, even when we've sought to live for Him most faithfully. As Solomon says, days of darkness will be many. But in spite of this, God's promise is that when we go through times of adversity, His light still will shine on us. We will go through many hard times, but the Lord is with us through them all. Psalm 42 verse 8 says, The Lord will command His loving-kindness in the daytime and in the night, His song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life. In the night His song shall be with me, like when Paul and Silas were unjustly jailed in Philippi. They were humiliated, stripped of their clothing, severely beaten with rods until their backs were bloody. Placed in a cell, the jailer was ordered to keep them secure, so he fastened their feet in the stocks. I wonder how I would have felt in the midst of this government persecution. In the case of Paul and Silas, Luke records that at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. In the night, His song will be with me. I will praise Him, even in the dark night of sorrow and pain, because in those days He'll give me deeper insight into Him in His ways, and my heart will be filled with gratitude, and my mouth will sing His praise. The fact is, our days of darkness are not to be forgotten, but rather to be remembered. Those days, we experience, provide us with deep life lessons and memories of where we met the Lord in special ways. They provide for us powerful ways to grow in our faith in Him. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 119, verse 71, It's good for me that I've been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes. We Christians often say we want to be like Jesus, but we seem to often forget He's our wounded healer. As Isaiah said, He bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, oppressed and afflicted, and was led as a lamb to the slaughter. This is the Jesus that every believer is being conformed into the image of, and we should not be surprised when we have many days of darkness. We must understand that it is through these things we deepen in our trust of the Lord. And it's how we come to realize that He works through all of our trials to bring us to know Him in a deeper way. The end result is that we learn not to trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death and does deliver us in whom we trust that He will still deliver us. As we go through days of darkness, may we learn what Job held fast to in the midst of His dark days. He said in Job chapter 23, verse 10, He knows the way that I take. When He's tested me, I shall come forth as gold. In the end, we will all ultimately see that what we went through on this earth was woven together, working together for good and answering our prayers. When we said to Him, Make me like you, Lord, make me like you, you are a servant, make me one too. During these dark and difficult days, remember to look up for your redemption draws an eye. This is Pastor David Rosales of Calvary Chapel of the Chino Valley, California.