DARK NIGHT

DARK NIGHT
Genesis 32:22-32
From the sermon “Wrestling at Peniel”

As I prepared this sermon, the memory of an experience in 1993 came back to me. I was then the senior pastor of Mount Carmel Bible-Presbyterian Church. I had actually given notice to step down when I received an invitation by a Christian leadership training organisation. The organisation, Haggai Institute, had a training centre in Singapore, and wanted to set up the second centre in Maui, Hawaii.

I was asked if I could go and set it up. I consulted my wife and our two daughters who were then teenagers. After much prayer and seeking the Lord together, in August that year, we decided and accepted the offer. Between August and December, we were invited to many farewell meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper—numbering 145.

Finally, around Christmas, the church held a farewell service for us. Two days before we were due to fly off to Hawaii, I was talking with my sister. She was a Human Resource specialist and had worked in the US. She asked me if I had gotten my visa to work in the States.

I told her that my employing body in the US had taken care of that. She said, Yes, they would clear all the formalities on their side, but I had to apply for a visa on the Singapore side. If I take up my position without a proper visa, I would be deported and would never be allowed in the US again. I asked her if she was joking, she was not; she was dead serious.

I called my boss. He said, “Cancel your flights and go to the US embassy first thing Monday morning.” I went, filled in the application, and was told to come back in two months for the interview. I told them I was starting work on the first of January.

The man looked at me without saying anything, but I could read his mind, “It’s your problem, not mine.” I called my boss, and he told me, “It’s okay, we will take you on as a Singapore staff. You go ahead to Hawaii.” So I went, alone, without my family, and with no guarantee that I would get a visa to work in the US.

I was there for a month. One day, all alone in the hotel room, a question hit me like a ton of bricks: What if you don’t get your visa? There could be all kinds of reasons why visas were not granted: health reasons, background check, prevailing government policy, etc. For several days, that question kept haunting me.

I had resigned from my church, taken the children out of school, rented out our flat, packed all our belongings in a 20-foot container, on its way across the Pacific Ocean to Honolulu. And we had told everybody we were going! We had had 145 farewells!

I cannot describe to you the feelings I felt: the dread, the fear, the panic. I could not talk to anyone because I felt they would not understand. Many doubts arose in my mind: maybe I am not the person for this position, maybe I have misread the Lord’s leading.

I thought about the inconvenience and the embarrassment should my visa application be denied. The hardest, and I had to be honest, was the blow to my pride and ego: after telling everyone this is the way the Lord is leading us, what if I was wrong?

It was then I had my dark night of the soul. I struggled, I agonised, I cried to the Lord, “I will not let you go unless you bless me!” Nothing else mattered. Not my plans, not my will, not the blessings of people, only the Lord and his blessing.

Unless I have the Lord’s blessing, nothing else mattered. It was then I surrendered unconditionally, willing to accept whatever he decides. I finally found peace and the question of the visa did not bother me again.

Two months later, I went for the interview at the embassy. We got the visas, and God gave us 13 fruitful years of ministry with the Institute.

What is your dark night?

When was a time when you realise you had no idea what was going to happen? When the future is uncertain, and life is insecure? When you feel all alone in your doubt and fear? When you have to decide if the Lord is the Lord of all or not at all?