Not Knowing is Darkness

Not knowing what God is telling us is living in darkness. And it is your fault!

There. I said it.
I have hinted at this lesson from the runaway bride in earlier posts, but I never stated it bluntly because… well, to be quite frank, I know that the chance of reading words in print without hearing the inflection of loving concern is pretty high, and that the knee-jerk response is to go all defensive and shut down. Ignoring a truth does not change it, however.
Gwen freely confessed that she did not know God's will on the marriage, and KatieLyn went all defensive, shut herself down, and chose to be out of Joe's life anyway, so I have nothing to lose by pursuing this lesson from the runaway:
       Not knowing what God is telling us is living in darkness. And it is your fault if you don't know!

Point #1
1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
John verified that this message was from Jesus the Anointed One: God is light. In Him is no darkness at all. The Old Testament understanding, as described in Daniel 2:22, was that "light dwells with Him." Paul, having received more revelation writes 1 Timothy 6:16 that God "lives in unapproachable light." The way that both can be true—that light dwells with God and that God lives in light—is the explanation that John got from Jesus: God is light. 

Point #2
1 John 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
This is straightforward. By applying very basic logic, we learn that having fellowship with God and walking in darkness cannot coexist.

Point #3
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
The main point of the previous verse is restated, an intentional redundancy to reduce misunderstanding, and then the cleansing blood is introduced. When we walk in the Light, living each moment in conformity with the precepts of God, as He Himself is in the Light, then we have unbroken fellowship with the Lord and He has fellowship with us.

(I think the Holy Spirit prompted John to mention the cleansing blood at this point because sin is darkness, so the blood covering would be necessary for fellowship with light. However, that would take us down the "how" rabbit trail, and we need to stay on the topic. For today, just accept that "faith in the blood" and "walking in the light" are inseparably linked for humans living in a fallen world.)

Not knowing is darkness; it is a place where you are out of fellowship with God. In this condition, you cannot have strong, unwavering faith, you cannot produce good fruit, and you cannot be in clear communication with Him.

Most of the time, for most people, and certainly in the case of the runaway bride, God has told us the next step. But maybe that next step was scary so we decided to ignore it, or maybe we weren't really paying attention and let it slip, or maybe our friends were upset by it so we pushed it away to not offend them, or maybe our family did not like it and we didn't want to oppose them, or maybe the devil was shooting fiery darts at us and the thought of confronting a spiritual battle was overwhelming so we chose not to resist, or maybe one of a thousand reasons and excuses. Whatever it was, we damaged our conscience by not monitoring God's voice closely and heeding His instructions quickly; as a consequence of self-inflicted damage to our conscience, darkness descended.

There are at least two places in the Epistles that give the explanation of why it is our own fault for not hearing God. One is Romans 1:21, 22 —

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools...

The people knew God. No question there. They knew God. But then they (a) did not honor Him as God and (b) did not give thanks. As a direct result, their speculations became increasingly futile and ultimately their conscience darkened.
In the co-dependency of KatieLyn and her mother, KatieLyn did not honor God because she doubted what He had told her, whilst her mother did not give thanks that God had answered her daughter's prayers. In the end, both were in darkness; the proverbial blind leading the blind.

A second explanation is found in Ephesians 4: 17b, 18 —

...walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.

In this passage of scripture, the darkening came as a result of (a) ignorance, and (b) hardness of heart. In the co-dependency of Gwen and her daughter, Gwen was ignorant of God's purpose and her daughter had hardened her heart, just enough, with fear, that it was easier to run off into the night than it was to stay and walk out the Lord's plan for her life with faith. 
Notice the juxtaposition of "futility of their mind" and "hardness of their heart" in this passage. The writing style hints at poetry. The callousness of the heart, the spirit, the real man, is contrasted with the vanity of the mind, the natural reasoning which controls the emotions. If you are looking for an explanation of what went wrong in this engagement, that is it. KatieLyn lost sight of God first, and as a consequence she lost sight of his plan, which included Joe. Satan told her it was the other way around; he lied.      

The Lesson
Those three point verses, taken together, show that there is no darkness in God at all. If we are in the dark about a situation, it is because we are out of fellowship with Him.  And if we are out of fellowship, that was our choice, not God's.