Light In The Darkness

Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness. Psalm 112:4a

Have you ever had to find your way in absolute darkness?

(Foreshadowing: I might also have begun with the question, have you ever done something really dumb but there was no turning back and the whole time you were asking yourself how you got into such a predicament and how you could be so stupid?)

When our youngest daughter was a baby, my husband took the other girls for a camping trip in the woods just down the road from our house. At some point in the evening I got it into my head that the baby and I needed to go visit them for a while. I parked the van at a familiar spot and plunged into the woods with the occupied car seat across my arm.

Once I crossed the tree line it was absolutely pitch dark.

But I had been there earlier in the day and I knew it was a straight shot and not very far to the campsite. So I forged ahead thinking the whole surreal time, “What am I doing?!” I wasn’t aware at the time that Ecclesiastes 2:14 says, “the fool walks in darkness.” But I was definitely feeling it.

After probably just a minute or two (seemed like longer) I suddenly came upon the opening, heard familiar voices, and saw the light of the campsite.

One thing is certain— if I hadn’t been there before, I would have had to turn back almost before I started.

In John 8:12, Jesus said, ““I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” Furthermore Psalm 119:105 tell us that God’s word is there to serve as “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” When we walk away from Jesus and His word, we are plunging ourselves into spiritual darkness. But eventually we become familiar with the dark path. Our eyes either adjust, or we learn to find our way around as a physically blind person learns to navigate in their own home. Sin can become familiar. Even comfortable.

Consider also Psalm 88, one of the most mournful psalms in the Bible, where the writer says his afflictions felt as if God had laid him “in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the depths” (v. 6). Though we don’t want to become familiar with heartache, each time we faithfully endure sorrow, we are leaving trail markers for ourselves that can help us the next time we have to pass through the darkness of grief.

Job described death as “the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land as dark as darkness itself, as the shadow of death, without any order, where even the light is like darkness,” (Job 10:21b-22). I find that an interesting contrast to Psalm 139 where the psalmist assures us that “even the darkness is not dark to [God]; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with [God]” (Psalm 139:12).

Jesus seems to be hinting at the “shadow of death” in John 9:4 where he said, “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.” Unlike the choices we have regarding the darkness of sin, or how we handle the darkness of grief, or even whether or not to traipse through the pitch black woods with a baby in a car seat on your arm, when it comes to the darkness of death, “there is no discharge in that war” (Ecclesiastes 8:8). But God has promised that we will live again in heaven “and there shall be no night there. And they need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light.” (Revelation 22:5).

Sometimes our past experiences can be helpful in dark times. But Jesus also has experience with suffering, so let us turn to Him when we cannot find our way. Even through “the valley of the shadow of death,” (Psalm 23:4) we need not fear, for we know the Light of the world has been there already. What better guide could there be?

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your word that guides us like a light in the dark. When I am faced with temptation, sin, grief, and even death, help me always to look to Jesus, the Light of the world. In His name, Amen.

by Christie Cole Atkins