March 2021

WHEN THE DARKNESS IS DEEPEST

The incessant heartache of her life made prayer akin to breathing.

My grandmother had lost her own mother, two stepmothers, and a number of brothers and sisters on the family farm where she worked day after day, her fingers raw to the bone, and her biceps bulging like a man’s. Through the sweltering summer hot spells and icy winters, she worked. Persistent snowfalls buried the life beneath the fertile Saskatchewan soil, but still she worked to feed and milk the cows and to collect the eggs from the chicken coop.

When she wasn’t outside, she scurried around the kitchen fixing cabbage rolls, perogies, soup, salad, and sandwiches to stuff into hungry mouths. And when her own family took center stage, she seized on the task of raising her two daughters single-handedly after her first husband ran off with other women.

Whenever she prayed, she cried—even when she said grace. No one ever questioned the sincerity of her faith; God was all she had, and God was all she needed.

So, it is no surprise that when my own life ran amuck with one tragic loss after another—the divorce and later deaths of my parents, my four brothers and I growing up in an orphanage, and accidents that stole the lives of two of my big brothers—I decided to receive instruction from my grandmother’s life.

When God is all you have, God is all you need!

I do not hold onto God because He is holding out some mystical carrot on a stick that I will one day be able to chomp when I get to heaven. I cling to Him for dear life because without Him, I would not be able to breathe.

So, when I see in my Bible Jesus peering into the telescope down the dark corridors of time, observing final events on planet earth, I am perplexed as He wonders aloud: “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

The answer is obvious: Of course, He will find faith on the earth! When the whole planet is going to hell in a handbasket, why would people not have faith in God? What else is there to hold onto?

But then I think of the collective denial, the intellectual vanity, and the courtly pride that caused a certain element of society to deny the Emperor was stark naked while he appeared in his royal carriage before the common people. You recall the classic tale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Emperor’s New Clothes? Two charlatans imposing as weavers spun a story of how they could fashion a fabric only the wise could see. They convinced the Emperor and his entire court that the invisible threads were as light and delicate as a spider’s web and would fit His Royal Majesty like a second skin.

A palpable hush filled the air when he appeared in public.

Mouths gaped and eyes grew wide as saucers.

It took a child to break the silence: “He’s naked! His Royal Majesty is wearing nothing!”

Jesus knew that in the last days many would depart from the faith, “giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1). He saw a generation that would live so cloaked in darkness, blinded to eternal realities, under the tyranny of a digital Babylon featuring a 24/7 media circus. He saw how their minds would be so confuse: “Ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). This intricately woven, vibrant design is an utter fabrication, and Jesus saw it all: a complete lack of faith in the eternal God, Who longed to open their eyes and break the spell of sin and selfishness, to free them from suffering under a profound sense of alienation and fear, living lives so interminably vapid, with no structure, certainty, or meaning apart from our omniscient Creator.

When I open my Bible, I understand why Jesus wondered if He would find faith on the earth when He comes. I see how it is crucial for each one to understand the importance of honestly and urgently praying: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).

Among the countless lessons my grandmother’s life taught me, I hold onto two truths: “When the darkness is deepest, the light of a godlike character will shine the brightest” (Acts of the Apostles, pg. 431). And “He who lives nearest to Jesus shines the brightest” (The Signs of the Times, August 16, 1905).

The truth will always be the truth, even if no one believes it; and a lie will always be a lie, even if everyone believes it.

In closing, I thank you for supporting the work of It Is Written Canada because without your ongoing support, we would not have a voice to speak the truth in these last days.

May God richly bless you with an intensity of interest to draw ever closer to Jesus, our gentle Saviour, in these final hours of Earth’s history.

~ Mike Lemon