and his name is Jesus who sacrificed himself to rescue us and the Holy Spirit of God is our comfort now and forever if we believe in the light of the world.

When you are entombed in a dark, underground tunnel you want to still have hope that in the end someone will come for you to rescue you and that in the end you will be saved.

The darkness is all around you, almost suffocating you.  In the beginning you had confident faith that you would be found and would be able to escape.  Then you begin to lose hope when the time passes and hours turn into days.  Then you begin to worry whether they will find you.  Later, you begin to worry if they are even looking for you.  Doubts and fears creep in.  You begin to waver in your faith that someone cares enough about you to even look for you.  What did they think of you, were you a good enough human being in their eyes?   Did you make enough of an impact in anyone’s life that you become worthy of their sacrificed effort?   You try to hold on to faith that you will be rescued but even the very thing you knew about yourself, your family and friends seemed to be outside of yourself and not inside with you in the darkness.  You begin to feel left behind to die alone.  You wonder if you might become simply a memory in someone’s mind. 

The above is a description of despair.  Despair makes you feel like giving up all hope that things will ever change.  It is a sinking, helpless feeling that floods over you as though you have no control of your life at all.

Then, suddenly it an instant, the light appears, hope also re-appears.  Someone has found you.  All your fears and doubts are gone in an instant with that beam of light dispelling the darkness.  Hope is light in dark times!  The light brings hope but the substance of something you know to be true and real just outside that hard mountain of stone, is confident faith to believe in. Faith comes from believing in what is beyond the hope.  If you were trapped in a cave and suddenly the light breaks forth shattering the darkness, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have already been rescued because they came for you…someone loved you enough to come for you.  You don’t know how they are going to get you out but only that they will.  The light brings hope but beyond that hope is something you know and believe in 100%...green grass, fresh air, your friends and family that love you….now you have a reason to live because it is real and that which you can believe in is just outside your reach but you believe it more than anything in your life.

Jesus is your rescuer, your savior, your salvation and your light!  He is your family and your friend.  He was sent to bring you home to be with the Father for eternity as long as you keep hold of the faith.

-------------------------