I watched a replay of a broadcast with Stephen Curtis Chapman from Good Morning America earlier today. This man and his family know about walking in darkness after the tragic death of their 5 year old daughter, Maria, who was accidentally run over and killed by their older son. This family spoke of their faith and their HOPE. They are experiencing the TREASURES OF DARKNESS.
When you are in the dark, the one thing you need is LIGHT.
David and I have become very good friends. I find myself camping out with him more and more. I think I was originally drawn to him because of the simple way he expressed himself. I could relate. I didn’t need a commentary or a concordance, I didn’t need to look up the Greek or Hebrew, I just listened to what he said and it spoke to me right where I was. I could put myself right into his place. His words became mine, expressing my innermost hurts and fears. David is VERY expressive and he was never bashful about speaking his mind to the Lord. Yet for all of his assertiveness, God still called him "a man after my own heart". To me, that has to be one of the highest compliments God could ever pay anyone. I long to hear him say that about me. So I felt right at home with David and felt I could learn a lot from him. Boy!! Have I !!!
David speaks my language and I bet he speaks yours too. He is acquainted with grief, sorrow, pain, suffering, rejection, loneliness and fear, just to name a few. Have you ever experienced any of those emotions? Maybe you are in the midst of one of those right now. If so, I invite you to come with me to David’s place, the book of Psalms, and camp out with us a while. He knows firsthand what it is to walk those dark valleys. Let him encourage your heart as he has encouraged mine so many times before.
When I first learned to "press into Christ", I began to seek help and comfort from the Word like I had never done before. Oh, I had studied the Bible for many years and taught it as well. But I had never clung to it the way I did at that time. A personal crisis of such magnitude came into my life that I HAD to cling to the Lord..there were no other options. Fear gripped my heart. I literally RAN to Him. I found Him in David’s camp and there I began to stay. I remember it well, but it is forever etched also in my Bible. I began at that time to write the date out beside the verses that God was using in my life.
One of the first verses He gave me at that time was Psalm 18: 28, "For thou wilt light my candle, the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness". I was in one of the darkest places I had ever been and God was saying to me that HE would BE my light and as my light, HE would lighten my darkness. Have you ever been in the dark? The kind of dark where you can’t see your hand in front of your face? I have.
We have a farm about 50 miles from our home. There my husband and our son and son-in-law deer hunt. My husband had hunted on this land for almost 25 years when the opportunity presented itself for us to buy this place. God opened the door and we were blessed to do just that. Now in all the years that they had hunted, I had been there maybe 2 or 3 times and always in the daytime. But after we purchased the place, we fixed up a house trailer that had been left there so that we could spend time there in that quiet and beautiful place. The trailer had been vacant for almost 2 years and had even been vandalized twice. It was empty, dirty and in need of a lot of work to make it habitable again. But it was a labor of love,, so we didn’t mind. We would go up and work on it as time permitted.
One day we worked til dark and since it is old, we decided to completely shut off all electricity to it before we left for the night. When my husband, Larry, pulled that switch and all the lights went out, I’ve never seen dark like I saw dark that night!! In fact, after that, I told him that you could look up ‘DARK’ in the Webster’s dictionary and it would say "Thomas and Thomas farm"!! You could see absolutely nothing!!
So I know dark and when you are in that kind of dark, the one thing you desperately need and long for is LIGHT. When I read from David that God would light my candle, that He would light my darkness, I knew that was exactly what I needed. That verse was written on a card and hung over my sink in the kitchen for months after that. A constant reminder to me, that the darkness would not last forever. God had promised to dispel that darkness and I clung to that promise.
Are there any dark places in your life? Do you feel like the whole world has closed in around you? Do you feel like no one else on earth could possibly know how you feel right now? Maybe the pain is so great, yet so personal that you cannot even share it with your closest friend. You know what? Your closest friend knows…….IF your closest friend is Jesus! He does understand. You can pour out your heart to Him. He cares so deeply about your hurt and He longs to lighten your darkness….to BE your light. The only way out of the darkness is for someone to light your way. God will light your candle today if you will only let Him.
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