If God’s ways are not according to human logic, this truth is nowhere more evident than in the way He grows His children in sanctification and wisdom. Saplings sprout upon the earth under direct sunlight and in optimal temperatures, but in contrast to this, God’s children grow in the darkness, at night during times of trial and testing. They are refreshed in the sunlit presence of the Lord with spiritual reprieve and rejuvenation – but they grow in holiness and sanctification in the dark. As seeds germinate beneath the soil in sun-deprived darkness; as the Lord knits babies together in the darkness of their mothers’ wombs, so the Lord knits our spiritual bones and substance together in dark wombs of affliction. Did not Samson’s hair grow back while He was in darkness? Did not God recapture Jonah’s growth in obedience while in the dark belly of a fish? Was it not from the darkness of the wilderness temptations that Jesus came out with the Spirit of the Lord upon Him for ministry? Did not even Almighty God form the universe in the void of created darkness, before the initial command of light?
Look at an earthly child. He eats and plays during the day, when sunlight encompasses his world. But at night, while sleeping, the food he ate miraculously transforms into bone and muscle. It is in the darkness of sleep and in the cocoon of sunless dormancy where his actual growth takes place – and to the extent that when he awakens, he is noticeably taller and his features all the more defined and mature. All parents have observed this bittersweet metamorphosis in their children.
