Dark Tunnels.

Dark tunnels can be frightening. Our fears can panic us into making poor choices. Carol reminds us that focusing on Christ is important as it allows God to help us in conquering our personal fears.

Places That Seem Like Dark Tunnels

Some puzzles my daughter, Amee, does with her dad include dark pieces or pieces so close in colour it becomes difficult to figure out exactly which piece should go where to complete the picture. It takes focus and sometimes a magnifying glass to make those determinations. Life can be full of places that seem like dark tunnels without much light to find your way through.

A Black Hills Bus Tour

My husband, Brian, our daughter, Amee, and I took a trip to the Dakotas. We chose to go on a bus tour in the Black Hills, visiting Mount Rushmore and driving on the Needles Highway with its switchbacks, tunnels, and spectacular scenery. As the bus climbed higher up the mountain, the tunnels became narrower and narrower, often having one way traffic going through them.

This meant trusting the bus driver to know the limitations of a huge bus compared to the size of the tunnel. It meant waiting our turn in some places. At the last tunnel before we reached the summit of the road and had an opportunity to stop and take photos, he explained how little clearance the bus would have. Newer buses could not be used due to an extra six inches of width they had been made with. Six inches isn’t very much and yet it meant the new buses could not squeeze through this narrow opening blasted into the rock of the mountain.

Claustrophobic Tunnel

We entered the tunnel. It felt claustrophobic with rock on the other side of the windows. His mirrors had to be pulled in to give the clearance needed. He stopped in the tunnel as if we were stuck. People waiting for us to exit so they could enter, watched with horrified looks on some of the faces. What if? Might have crossed their minds. Were we stuck? How could we get out? Would the driver be able to back up and not continue the tour?

We fit but barely. The bus bore signs on the outside of times the driver hadn’t lined it up just right and scraped the sides against the rough walls. We escaped the confines of the rock opening thanks to the expert handling of a large bus by an experienced driver.

Don’t Get Off In The Scary Tunnel!

Later I met a pastor at a camp I was speaking at. He made a comment that reminded me of this experience. He said,

“Don’t get off the train in the tunnel when all feels dark and scary.”

We couldn’t have exited that bus in the tunnel if we wanted to. There was no room to open the door or a window, let alone for a person to squeeze between the vehicle and the rock wall. Yet how often, in the middle of a crisis, a dark moment in our lives, do we want to escape.

Yet if we get off the road to recovery, off the road to a solution to the crisis, or give up on working our way through depression, pain, and anger, it becomes like getting off the train in the tunnel. We dwell in the darkness of the problem instead of focusing on the light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dim it might seem at the moment.

Where To Focus

Hebrews 12: 1, 2a reminds us of where to keep our focus,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

No matter how dark and rough life seems, we need to trust Jesus. Ephesians 3: 20,21 is such a wonderful promise that we aren’t in this by ourselves.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Let’s not get off in a tunnel or struggle with the dim view of present circumstances, but instead fix our eyes on Jesus and trust him to lead the way.

Are you afraid of dark tunnels? We would love to hear from you. Comment below or contact us at HopeStreamRadio.