When I find myself swallowed by darkness, it does me no good to deny it or pretend it is otherwise. Whether I'm there by my own choosing, by circumstances thrust upon me, or by Divine Intervention, truth is: darkness is dark and there's a reason I don't like it.
When that darkness is complete, I can't even see to take the next step...I don't know whether that step will land me on solid ground or hurl me over a precipice...whether it will be slippery enough that I'll fall...whether it will start me on a steep ascent that I have no strength to navigate...there is no way to know what lies ahead. Or behind. Am I being pursued? What unseen dangers lurk all around?
There is no escaping the reality that a place of darkness is a place of fear.
There is but one comfort. Only one. It is this: even the darkness is light to Him. Night? Bright as the day! HE SEES. I simply have to go on, one very small, careful, frightened step at a time and TRUST that He will catch me, pick me up, rescue me. I must believe in His goodness and mercy when I can't see it or Him. I must REMEMBER His works of old and the way He has continually worked on behalf of His people. He WILL preserve me. He WILL bring me out of darkness into His glorious light, and one day He will BANISH that darkness forever. He Himself will BE my light!
When I trust, when I remember, and when I anticipate that day, the darkness doesn't cease to be dark, but it loses its power and I am able to take the next step AND to be at rest.
PSALM 139: 7-12
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day
for darkness is as light to you.
the night will shine like the day
for darkness is as light to you.
2 comments:
Sounds like you've spent some time with John Bunyan:
"The pathway was here also exceeding narrow, and therefore good Christian was the more put
to it; for when he sought, in the dark, to shun the ditch on the one hand, he was ready to tip over
into the mire on the other; also, when he sought to escape the mire, without great carefulness he
would be ready to fall into the ditch. Thus he went on, and I heard him here sigh bitterly; for besides
the danger mentioned above, the pathway was here so dark, that ofttimes when he lifted up his foot
to go forward, he knew not where, or upon what he should set it next."
The post was actually based on personal experience, but the Bunyan quote is very fitting!! Thanks.
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