By the time October rolls around, I do what I can to avoid the holiday section of the grocery store—the one with every motion-activated decoration turned on to scare innocent passersby. Some people enjoy the surprise attack. I’d mostly prefer to buy my celery in peace.
In these final weeks before Halloween, it seems like nearly every nearby establishment has some nod to the holiday. My neighbors have added creepy decorations to their front doors. The local rooftop cinema is screening old horror movies with special late-night discounts.
I recently drove through a neighborhood filled with decorations on my way to pick up my brother for a day of oncology appointments and testing. He texted me his location, and I made my way to his parking spot, passing houses with skeletons and fake cemeteries in their front yards. Throughout the city, people have begun to dim their lights, drape cobwebs across the shadows, and play up themes of death and darkness.
For some, there’s a thrill in feeling unsettled or afraid, as long as it’s make-believe, and as long as they’re still in control. But for many of us, there’s nothing fun about the very real fears keeping us up at night; there’s no delight in death. So what do you do when the scary things you’re facing aren’t decorations you can tear down, but real suffering, uncertainties, and fears that make even the daylight seem dark?
The Darkness We Don’t Talk About
The weekend before my brother’s appointments, I sat with friends who knew how heavily they weighed on my mind. One asked me directly: “Where does your mind go when you start to feel anxious? What are you most afraid of happening? Is it that his cancer will return and that he could die? What is your worst case scenario?”
And I told her.
Her approach may not have been particularly sensitive. Some would say it needed a trigger warning. But in that moment, she knew what I needed—an invitation to lay my fears bare, to air them out rather than letting them fester in the corners of my mind.
Expressing your greatest fears out loud to a godly friend feels a lot like flipping all the lights on inside a haunted house and exposing it for what it is. When you get closer to what’s inside, you see it’s not as scary as you once thought. When you examine all of your fears against the truth of Scripture, the circumstances you’re facing may not change but you rob your fears of the power they hold over you when they lurk in the shadows.
Focusing specifically on who God is can help you to shine a light on your fears, including those that feel too frightening to even speak out loud. You can fight against the fears that are haunting you with the hope of God’s Word. Here are three verses to help you push out the darkness.
Three Truths to Push out the Darkness
1. “He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.” (Daniel 2:22)
In Daniel 2, after God revealed King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to Daniel, Daniel praised the Lord and declared “wisdom and power belong to him” (v. 20). He gave specific evidence of God’s authority: “He changes the times and seasons; he removes kings and establishes kings” (v. 21). It was a reminder: God had complete control over the most powerful person on earth both then and now, and He is still sovereign over all the events of history.
He’s also the source of all wisdom. “He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him” (v. 22). The kingdoms of the world, even the most powerful king who was able to collect all the best sources of information, couldn’t foresee the future and all that’s to come. Only God’s vision has been clear from the beginning of time into eternity.
He reveals mysteries from the darkness
and brings the deepest darkness into the light. (Job 12:22)Even the darkness is not dark to you.
The night shines like the day;
darkness and light are alike to you. (Psalm 139:12)
Your biggest fears will only be squashed by something greater than them. Fears feed off the lie that God cannot handle what you’re worried about and that those circumstances are not fully within His control. When you place your biggest fears at His feet, you’ll find that they’re not even a speck of dust on the scales (Isa. 40:15) compared to His enormity. Cancer is not God’s rival; He’s not surprised when your husband loses his job or your children rebel. Everything ultimately submits to Him, and He knows where all your uncertainty leads. He sees and has not lost control of your future.
2. “God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him.” (1 John 1:5)
What good would it be if God had all the power over the things you feared plus knowledge of the future but you couldn’t trust Him? The character of the one you turn to matters deeply. In James 1:17, God is called the “Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
There’s no flicker of darkness in Him. He’s able to spotlight those who are living in spiritual darkness because He Himself stands in stark contrast to the evil and wickedness of this world. His character is perfect. Pure. Holy. Which makes Him a safe place for you to run to when the darkest fears fog your mind.
3. “Night will be no more . . . because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 22:5)
Part of the manufactured fear within a haunted house exhibit or even within a corn maze is the idea that you’re not going to get out. You wonder if you’ll keep turning corners and be stuck forever. When the circumstances you’re facing continue to make you feel trapped, when they keep creating new reasons for fear, remind yourself that the end has been written, even if you can’t see it yet.
Jesus, the light of the world, has overcome the darkness (John 1:5). Because He was victorious over sin and death, you can be confident there will be a day when night is no more.
The sun will no longer be your light by day,
and the brightness of the moon will not shine on you.
The LORD will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your splendor. (Isaiah 60:19)
Throughout this round of testing for my brother, the opening verse of Andrew Peterson’s well-known song “Is He Worthy?” has brought me to tears a number of times. It acknowledges that while you feel the world is broken, and you feel the shadows deepen, you can also know “all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through.” You can long to “see it all made new.” Because one day you will.
Leave the Lights On
The reality is that the circumstances driving your fear today may continue the rest of your life. Halloween will show up on your calendar every October. My brother, even as he remains in remission, will continue to get scans to make sure his cancer hasn’t returned. The reasons for our fear may not go away until we reach eternity, but I’ve found that each time I turn to the truth of who God is, it feels like leaving another light on in the midst of the darkness.
No matter what is feeding your fears this season, the Lord is able to illuminate your deepest worries. He can enable you to say along with David and all the other saints who trusted the lamp of God’s Word to lead them home:
The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom should I fear? (Psalm 27:1)
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