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We have all experienced dark episodes in our lives, times of discouragement and disappointment and loss. We have all had times when we've faced the natural painful consequences of our own foolish mistakes. There are seasons, though, when people who love God – who are serving Him faithfully – go through extremely difficult, dark times. When that happens, it is easy to question whether the God we serve truly loves us, or whether we are really in the center of His will.

As we noted last week, the Lord allows the dark night to happen to His beloved children, and especially those who are the most faithful, the most loving, the ones who want all of Him. Again, remember Isaiah 50:10, "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light?"

Great Christians are made by great trials. Pain, sorrow and failure are what produce men and women of God. Those with the greatest dreams are often the ones who receive the greatest trials. Eternal lessons seem to require hard places. As Scripture declares, the way we are made "perfect," or whole or complete, is by suffering or by barring ourselves from sin and self (Hebrews 2:10). First, God must take away all our external and internal supports other than Himself, then He can strengthen our inner man, enabling us to experience His fullness – that fullness of Himself we so desperately long for.

The dark night of the soul happens to people who have already accepted the Lord; those who have already given their lives to Him; those already filled with the Spirit; those who have already dedicated their lives to Him; those who have already asked for intimacy; and those who have already been set aside for God's purposes of ministry.  Yet, like Job, people who are truly serving God and are in the center of His will can go through very dark times.

Why Does God Send the Dark Night?
There seems to be three things that God is looking for in each of our lives: our salvation, our conviction, and our sanctification.

God wants to prove us, to demonstrate our true heart. Will we be obedient in all things? (2 Corinthians 2:9) Will we obey Him, even when we can't see Him or feel Him? Will we hold on to His truths even though we don't understand what He is doing? Peter writes:

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:"  -1Peter 1:7

Can we all catch that? The trials of our faith are precious. They are never empty or meaningless, but are destined to have great value both in our personal lives and in the Kingdom. The Lord wants believers who have faith like Job, and who can utter like he did, "Though You slay me, yet will I trust You."
When Job sought the Lord to know why the bad things were happening to him, he got no answer from God. And it's often the same with us. God only tells us that He does have a plan for our lives and, even though we don't understand what that plan is or how it is going to work out, we must trust that He always has our best in view. 

When seasoned believers enter this dark night, they are no longer in the beginning stages of learning about the reality of Christ's love and power.  Those foundational bricks have been already laid. When dark nights come, we must learn to rely upon our Savior in spite of our circumstances, in spite of our logic and in spite of our human reason. We must trust that only God knows what is best for our lives; therefore, whatever He allows into them He will use it for our good.

God is teaching us that all that matters in this life is knowing and loving Him. He wants us to love Him and rely upon Him regardless of what we desire, regardless of what our intellect is saying and regardless of what we are feeling. He wants us to be able to echo what Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 4:8-11:

"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."

For those who love Jesus and are dedicated to Him, to have His life manifested through us is the greatest thing that could be asked of our lives; it is worth any temporary suffering or difficulty or dark time that God puts in our path. And even during these terrible trials, when things look so very dark, we can still "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory," (1 Peter 1:8) because we know that even then (and especially then), God is doing wonderful, precious work behind the scenes.

Prayer and football games tend to go together. There is no doubt that if the Anglo-Saxon Seahawks had matched up against the Frank Redskins, prayers would have been heard across the ancient Roman Empire. Even if they call on the Almighty at no other time during the week, fans and players will breathe out prayers when it comes time for a football game.

A school in Georgia, though, went farther than just a pre-game prayer in the locker room or murmured pleas from the stands.  The cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School until recently displayed Bible verses on huge banners at games. Rather than simply praying for God's blessing, these students decided to stand on His Word on behalf of their football team.  Now that the school district has ruled that the football players may no longer run through banners with the Scriptures on them, the students are making sure that prayer and God's word continue to find their way into the games.

Fort Oglethorpe is a town with a large number of churches, like many similar towns in the South. Townspeople freely display signs like, "TRUTH IS NOT SOMETHING TRUTH IS SOMEONE" and "PRAISE THE LORD AND EAT A BISCUIT." After September 11, 2001, the cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School decided to make God a bigger part of school life, and began to paint huge banners of Bible verses for the football games. They painted up slogans derived from verses, like "Be men of courage; be strong" (1 Cor. 16:13); "We will support you, so take courage and do it" (Ezra 10:4); and "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed" (Prov. 37:5).  The Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe Warriors would then crash through these banners as they ran onto the field.

For eight years this went on, and nobody made a fuss until September 23, 2009. The banner displayed before the game on September 18 read, "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:14" The next Wednesday, Donna Jackson, the mother of an LFO High student, called the Catoosa County school superintendent. Worried that the signs would eventually cause the school district to face a lawsuit, Jackson warned that the practice of displaying Bible verses was illegal because the games were a school-sponsored activity. 

Supt. Denia Reese heard Jackson out, and the school district finally ruled that the religiously themed banners had to go. "Personally, I appreciate this expression of their Christian values," Reese said in a statement. "However, as superintendent I have the responsibility of protecting the school district from legal action by groups who do not support their beliefs."   She said the US Supreme Court had ruled that religious activity at football games created the "inescapable conclusion" that the activity was school endorsed.

The cheerleaders were upset, of course. They argued that they, and not the school, were the ones painting those banners; being told to stop the displays violated their First Amendment rights.

"I did not think it was a violation of the law because the girls fundraised the money for the signs and it was a completely student-led activity," said Susan Bradley, Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe's cheerleading coach.

The cheerleaders received immediate and loud support in the community. People rallied to insist that the signs be brought back. "Our Constitution does guarantee that our federal government will not establish a religion," youth pastor Jeremy Jones told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. "It will also make sure that we are allowed to exercise it without interference from the government. That is what we need to fight for, folks."

Since religiously-oriented banners have been relegated to the lawn outside the stadium, the townspeople and students have taken to wearing religiously-themed T-shirts into the games. Some even have painted Bible verses on their bodies. The fans in the stands have also been bringing their own plethora of scripture-bearing signs for the games, and students gather in the mid-field to pray afterward.

Fort Oglethorpe Mayor Ronnie Cobb has said he would call on City Council officials to support the cheerleaders in displaying the signs. Either way, the Scripture is getting a lot of screen-time in Fort Oglethorpe, and will continue to be displayed as long as the people make it a priority to spread God's Word in their town.