How many of you can remember when traveling as a child, lifting up your legs as the car you were in went over a bridge or over some train tracks? It was one of those fun things you did as a kid. Another thing you might have done was maybe hold your breath as you went through a tunnel. Even as an adult, I would sometimes do it when we encountered tunnels while traveling back to Vancouver Island.

When we lived in Calgary, we used to do it on the C-train as it passed under many of the streets in the city. I could hold my breath through most of them, but there was the odd one that pushed the limits to my breath control. As you travel on the motorway between Dublin International airport and the city, you have to go through a tunnel that in a vehicle traveling at 80km/h takes almost three and a half minutes to make it through.

Now there are probably a few of you who might be able to hold your breath two minutes… three and half might be tough. In Switzerland, they recently opened up the Gotthard Base tunnel. It is 35 miles long and took 17 years to build. Try holding your breath for that one!

Tunnels remind me of many of the “dark” times in my life where hope and optimism were replaced with despair. These were times of sorrow, loss, anger, frustration and fear. And sometimes these “tunnels” seemed much longer than anything we could have imagined.

Over the last year or so, I have been having coffee with someone whose life has been almost a constant tunnel. In this person’s sixty years of life, all they seem to have experienced is suffering, pain and loss. This has led to self-pity, anger, addiction issues and ultimately the inability to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

For some of us it is easy to look at this person and think that they have lived a “wasted life.” And in some senses he has but he is slowly making steps to change that…

The truth is, all of go through stretches in our lives where there is seemingly no end to the tunnel we are in. We try to find an exit and at every turn there is a barrier and the way is blocked. For some, it is in those times where they “give up.”

One of my favourite and one of the most well-known Bible passages is Psalm 23. Many people quote it during funerals or in difficult times.

Near the middle of the psalm, King David pens some words that I have come to use as a focus when life seems at its darkest. He writes: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Other translations say, “walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”

Regardless, there are times in our lives where we feel like we are in the darkest valley and all that surrounds us is death. But the promise of this passage is the same promise Jesus reiterates a thousand years later, “you are with me.” I don’t know about you, but I find the fact that the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe is by my side helps me to face whatever challenges or circumstances life throws at us. It is the same thought Jesus had when He told His disciples in Matthew 28:20, “Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

So I want to encourage each of us to keep our hearts and eyes focused on the One who is with us. We will always go through tunnels along this journey, but knowing who is with you will help you to keep focused on the light that will inevitably come…