In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley.

Next on In Touch, walking with God through the dark times.

We all have walked through those dark times in our lives, things we don't understand.

And oftentimes, there are things we don't understand. And oftentimes there are things we don't understand

why they happen and why they happen when they happen. Times we feel overwhelmed, don't understand

what's going on. Times we just want to give up and quit. Times when we feel like everything seems to be hopeless and we feel so helpless.

It may be that those dark times come with something financial,

something that's continually a burden in your life.

Or it may be because the marriage breaks up,

and it's a time of dread darkness in your life. It could be grief over

your children for something that's going on in their life. Maybe you've lost your job. Maybe it's

a time of ill health, and it just goes on and on and on. Maybe your fondest dreams have been

dashed in the future looks so gloomy. All of us are going to go through dark times in our life.

We won't always understand why. Sometimes they're going to be short-lived. Sometimes they're going

to be prolonged and we do not understand why God doesn't stop it even now. But even though

that happens, there's a way for us to respond. And God has given to us

in His Word the principles by which you are not to operate in every single circumstance of life,

no matter what it is. And when we talk about walking through darkness, I want to be sure we

understand something. And that is that it's one thing to walk in darkness, it's something else to walk through darkness.

Now the scripture says, for example, in Colossians chapter 1, Paul is talking about our relationship

to Christ and where we are in that relationship. And here's what he says in this first chapter.

He says, we know, for example,

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