Last year I read The Hiding Place for the first time and honestly I don’t know how I got so far in life without reading it. It’s an incredible first hand account of Corrie Ten Boom’s attempts to protect the most vulnerable during WWII and her subsequent arrest and imprisonment alongside her sister Betsie. Throughout all the horror and pain they experienced, Corrie and Betsie maintained an absolutely unshakeable faith that God was in control.
When the sisters were moved to a new prison hut, Betsie insisted that they thank God for everything in prayer. Corrie followed suite until Betsie said they needed to thank God for the fleas that were plaguing them in the hut. That was too much for Corrie, but Betsie insisted. They needed to thank God for the fleas.
In time, the sisters were sharing the gospel with their hutmates. But surprisingly, they were never bothered by the viscous guards known for their cruelty in the camp.
And that’s when Betsie realized what God had done. The infestation of fleas plaguing the women were just as bothersome to the guards posted outside. While the prisoners had no choice in the matter, the guards could shirk their duties just enough to avoid entering the cabin and its filth, allowing Corrie and her sister unsupervised ability to speak God’s truth to their fellow prisoners. The fleas. The fleas that had seemed impossible to bear became a saving grace that enabled true good to take place.
Betsie understood what is so easy for us to forget in moments of hardship and despair: God’s sovereignty is so great that no evil can ever exist without good coming of it.
Evil is horrible and destructive and heartbreaking. It doesn’t bring us to rejoice or celebrate and we always regret its presence. But it is absolutely impossible for evil to exist without hope. For that to be the case, the enemy would have had to win and we know, even when everything seems hopeless, that that’s not the case.
Like Corrie and Betsie, we will be faced with horrible circumstances that seems no my have no good in them whatsoever. We may not experience them as harshly as those sisters did, but we will experience them and we have to remember that that evil, no matter how bad and how horrible, can never be so powerful as to surpass God’s glory and might.
One of my favorite verses of all time boldly asserts: “A light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)
Whatever evil exists in your life, whatever hardship, whatever despair. None of it is allowed to exist without God’s hope providing a way through it. Evil is only visible in the light of God’s inescapable goodness. Their very image first bounces of Gods glory. And from that flows all sorts of room to participate in his goodness as it slashes through evil left and right.
Christian, you are enveloped in that light, in that goodness. The darkness does not have you. You can live in the confidence that no matter what happens to you in your life, it doesn’t happen in defeat. The only way for you to be overcome is for you to consciously choose to walk away from God in favor of darkness. That’s it. That’s the only way. Everything else God can and will actively walk you through no matter how bad it gets.
He is completely and totally in control. Full stop. Breathe in his power, breathe out his calm. Nothing is too powerful for God to overcome. The light still burns bright.
Let’s find some joy,
Avalon Robinson Author 