“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
A friend once asked me how it was that I got out of my “dark path.” By dark path, perhaps she means how did I grab ahold of my weakness and turn it into strength. Or maybe she was pertaining to how I was able to make my demons virtually non-existent. You see, everyone has demons. Everyone has that secret dark side that they keep to themselves because it’s usually too ugly for even the closest companion. I have that side as well. When my friend contacted me with that question, I told her that the way to get out of a dark path was to realize that you were never intended to be alone, and that God can build a strong fortress around you. What I told my friend was all true, but I forgot to let her in on one tiny detail.
The “dark path” that everyone talks about: it never goes away.
Every day, everyone is given a choice. This is God’s gift for man to have free will. With said free will comes the responsibility for that free will. A part of this responsibility is being able to make the right choices, which we don’t always do. We have a choice to allow our demons to haunt us and overstep us, or we can put them at the foot of the Cross, which means that we give our demons to the Lord. We choose to take our anxieties and our worries and our tears and our sorrows and our pain, and put them at His feet. By allowing God to take our demons, this doesn’t mean we still aren’t fighting those demons. It just means that we are not fighting alone.
By not giving into the dark tunnel of sins and sorrows, we instead must seek the light that brightens the way for us. God did not create a world of purity and perfection, but He also did not create a world of darkness and hate. He created us in a place where we could choose our own paths, whether that be the path God wants for us, or the path we want for ourselves. Don’t get me wrong; choosing God’s path was never intended to be easy. Be prepared for a complete war zone, filled with new battles every day. Like I said, no one was made to be perfect except Jesus. People will betray you, beat you down, and belittle you to the point of no return, but it will be even harder to fight back without God on your side.
“But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the Lord because He is good to me.” -Psalms 13:5-6
