A Light in the Darkness

   Darkness is kind of a funny thing.  It doesn't somehow eerily produce ill-begotten fantasies.  The same occurrences and beasts meander in the day as well.  Somehow though, we have subconsciously learned to give power to the dark.  Maybe it's those childhood memories of fear in the night, the suspense of what lay around the next corner when walking as an adult, or perhaps even a real life trauma occurred that left you afraid.  Whatever the context or reason, we need to start utilizing the dark and reclaiming all of the power that we have lent to our crazy abyss of fears.
 
   There's an illusion that darkness not only hides things, but actually creates certain monsters.  Certainly the dark has an ability to makes things harder to distinguish, but it's not a breeding ground for bad things.  Sometimes we can even run to the darkness to hide; we stuff our skeletons where people can't see them, hoping they never surface.  And maybe that's really why we're afraid of the dark....because we know what kind of secrets we've stashed there.  Inevitably though, the sun always shines, and our junk comes flying out unexpectedly like a jack-in-the-box.  Our darkness is now overflowing into our light.  Now what?  Usually we stuff it back down and keep pretending, all the while keeping our nightmares intact.  We illuminate our fear of night because we've convinced ourselves that there's a difference between night and day, exposed and hidden.

   Psalm 139:11-12 says, 'I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night-but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.  To you the night shines as bright as day.  Darkness and light are the same to you.'

   Wait.  Did you hear that?!  Darkness and light are the same to God!  When we are in His light...He is with us and sees our every intention.  When we shamefully run into the dark looking to hide from Him....He is already there.  And where He is, there is no darkness.  And sometimes, just sometimes, God lets us fumble around in the dark until we find him there.  Sometimes there are truths found in the darkness that can't be found in the light. 

   In Exodus when Moses was on Mount Sinai and God was passing by him, he hid Moses in the cleft of the rock.  He put his hand over him, shrouding him in complete darkness, until he passed and could safely exit the mountain.  Sometimes we want to run from the dark because our imaginations run wild.  Most of the time though, we are simply to search out God's light and trust that the reason things look so dark is because the very hand of God is upon us.  Covering us.  Protecting us from all of the unseen dangers.  When we find the light while we are yet in the darkness...the truth tends to stay with us longer.  Because we've been there, and the truth of the light works.  It's undisputed, reliable, tested and true.  If you search for Him...he has promised that you will find him.  Especially in the dark!.