¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,”
¹² Even darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.

In understanding the nature of God, Psalm 139:11-12 are two of the most important verses we can know as Christians because they speak to the omnipresence and omniscience of God.  That is to say that God is all-present (everywhere) and God is all-knowing.  In short, without these two attributes of God, we would not have a God, at least not one whom we could trust and put our faith in.

We live all of life in the presence of God and we cannot hide from Him.

David here is writing about the fact that whether he is in the daytime or the night time, he is always in the presence of God.  We live all of life in the presence of God and we cannot hide from Him.  When David writes that “the darkness is not dark to You”, he is drawing attention to the fact that God knows everything, so here we acknowledge that God is with us in every situation, knows what we are doing in every moment, and our lives are fully on display before the Almighty!  This is not something that we think about everyday, but when we do think about it, we will find that it tempers are attitudes, words and actions.  Whether we want to keep a secret sin hidden or we want to privately do something good for someone else, we may be able to keep people in the dark, but God is never in the dark when it comes to the entirety of our lives.  At the end of verse 12, David writes that darkness and light are alike to you to point out this basic truth about God compared to the limitations of people.

When we interpret scripture, there is always a primary meaning and sometimes there can be a secondary meaning.  Here I would like to offer a secondary meaning and focus on the words “darkness” and “light.” In biblical interpretation, there is something called the ‘semantic range’ of a word.  In the Hebrew, the term translated darkness can certainly mean nighttime, however it can also mean gloom, sadness, despair, or terror.  Some Lexicons include the meaning of “hard to understand” or “bewildered.”  Likewise, the word for light can also be translated as happiness, radiant joy, prosperity, bright, cheerfulness or serenity. In consideration of these additional meanings, it can be a great source of peace for the Christian to know in our hearts that God is with us in times of utter darkness as well as to be thankful in times of radiant joy.

In the context of the Psalm, we can see that God is with us everywhere, that means even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we are not alone.  In verse 9, David writes that even in the remotest parts of the sea, God is with me.  This brings to mind Jonah, who began to praise God when he was oceans and oceans deep, because he had faith that God was with him and would rescue him.  Or in verse 13, acknowledging that we belong to God, “for You created my innermost parts; You wove me together in my mother’s womb.”  In other words, You God took great care to create me, and I can see that I am wonderfully made (v.14), I can have confidence that Your hand is in everything that I am going through.

This is important to know because there have been times or will be times in all of our lives when darkness falls on our lives and it leaves us bewildered, trying to understand, while navigating the sadness.  Times when we question God, question our faith, trying to understand how good can come from bad, but it is in those moments when we remember who God is, that we can find our footing to stand firm in the storm.  There are many examples in my own life as well as the lives of those I love, things you never imagine from untimely death, infidelity, cancer, divorce, betrayal, lost love, public humiliation, financial ruin, yet in the midst of the darkness, we cling to the sovereignty of God, and the goodness of God.  Yes we hurt, we cry, we get depressed, sometimes the sadness can make us physically ill, but God sustains us and comforts us.

[Sidebar: It is also important to note that to a certain degree, darkness is in the eye of the beholder.  This is important because Christian like to be helpful, but many lack the training and maturity to be helpful and often cause more damage with their words.  No one knows what is going on inside of us except for us and God, and sometimes we do not even understand the turmoil inside of us.  As Billy Graham once shared a story of a lost love, he stated, “they said is was only puppy love, but it was real to the puppy!”  We would do well to take a queue from Job’s friends in Job 2 where it states that they sat with him for seven days and seven nights with no one saying a word because they could see he was in great pain. Be careful not to minimize someone else’s pain! 

Putting times of darkness in perspective can take time, sometimes years.  It is quite possible that we have experienced tragedy in our lives in which a satisfactory answer will never come to us this side of heaven, but it is in those very instances that we find our resolve, our faith takes deeper root, and eventually we arrive at a place where we say that God is in control and we actually believe it.  When Paul writes in Philippians 4 that he has learned to be content and that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him, he is calling attention to the goal of this life.  That is that we seek a content heart, a heart that does not live and die with every situation in our lives, but rather engages everyday living in the presence of God trusting that we are not alone in whatever the day brings.  Not that we don’t grieve or celebrate, but within the highs and lows of life, we are content because regardless of what this life brings or doesn’t bring, the most important thing about every Christian has been settled in eternity, therefore I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me for this life.

Prayer: Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  Send us now into the world in peace and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord. Amen!