Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119:105)
As a young boy, I was afraid of the dark so I avoided dark places. Problem solved! Not really. My train set and my dad’s workshop were in the windowless basement of my grandmother’s place of business. If I wanted to run the old “Lionel” or build something with the shop tools, I would brave the steep steps to the basement and systematically turn on every light – even in the out-of-sight spaces. As long as every light was on, I could relax. When I finished doing whatever it was that inspired me to go to the “dungeon” in the first place, a different routine would ensue. I would run with Olympian speed through the maze of dank and musty spaces, in an equally methodical way, flicking switches and pulling chains that turned the lights off. With a racing heart and labored breathing, I would hurtle myself up the stairs, hit the last switch and slam the basement door behind me.
The basement door led straight into the midst of my grandmother’s tavern, so on many occasions, a young frenzied boy (me) would “pop” out of the dark into the light. On nearly as many occasions, my grandmother’s customers would sneer, snicker, and ask in a shaming tone, “Why are you so afraid of the dark?” Answering their question in my thoughts, the most obvious answer was, “There’s scary and ugly stuff in the dark. I could get hurt in the dark!”
My fear of the dark diminished as I grew older, and verses such as the one above gave me comfort. A lamp for my feet and a light for my path would make navigating in a spiritually dark world much safer. Problem solved! Not really. God did something I didn’t expect. God’s lamp exposed another spiritually dark place.
You light a lamp for me. The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness. (Psalm 18:28, emphasis mine)
God’s lamp was no longer just aimed at the darkness that was around my feet; it was trained straight at the darkness within me – the darkness in my heart.
The Lord’s light penetrates the human spirit, exposing every hidden motive. (Proverbs 20:27)
God revealed that as I grew older, my fear of the dark hadn’t just diminished; I had actually started to embrace and look for relief in the dark. Knowing He was right, another unexpected thing was revealed. I was afraid to look at my own heart. I was afraid to look at how ugly and damaged my heart had become.
The boy who was afraid of the dark had become an adult who was afraid of the light. I was afraid that God would snicker and sneer at me, and in my thoughts, I wanted Him to turn off the light. Then (not to imply that it happened quickly, because it did not) I began to see God’s heart in the light as well. There was no condemnation in God’s heart - just love and concern. Because of His love, it was safe to look at my sick heart.
I aroused you under the apple tree, where your mother gave you birth, where in great pain she delivered you. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal over your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as enduring as the grave. Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame. (Song of Songs 8:5b-6, emphasis mine)
Our Heavenly Father’s brightest light and love are indistinguishable. It is not His light that I need to fear; that is where I will be made well. In His light, I see safety and healing. I do not see any sneering or snickering. God has been teaching me that I need to fear the spiritual darkness, similar to the way I was afraid of the dark as a young boy.
There is scary and ugly stuff in the dark. Without fail, I will get hurt there. You’ll get hurt there too.
Grace to you.
David Paukner
I've been thinking a lot about this lately. How bad memories are like deleting files on a computer. Where do they go? Do they just disappear?
ReplyDeleteSomeone once told me that they never really disappear they just get overwritten. Sounds believable to me.
I've been thinking about bad things that have happened to me in the past. Forgetting about them has got me nowhere.
The beauty of today is that I can revisit those moments with God. But this time we can walk through them together.
That's pretty cool.
Dave,
ReplyDeleteI went home for Thanksgiving this year and worked around on the farm this week and got to thinking about this subject for whatever reason. I was scared of the dark as a child too. And now as an adult or rather one who has a personal relationship with my Creator, the issue is not an issue.
I got to thinking about it because of Doug Lebsack's sermon a couple of weeks ago regarding inherited sin - he asked the congregation how did we learn how to lie and blame others as children...no one taught us this - but this was a trait from a sinful nature. This got me to thinking about being afraid of the dark partly because I did not like going into the barn at night; however, I worked in there till the sun went down and really understood that being afraid of the dark was me giving Satan power over me and my own personal thoughts and that I gave power to a lie and made something bigger that it is.
I agree there are some scary and evil things which lurk in the dark; however, I also believe if you're mind is dark, that this can create a downward spiral on all levels of your spiritual battle...darkness can truly not exist in the presence of light -- so if physically no light exists around you and you are physically in the dark, their should be no fear because the light of the Holy Spirit lives inside you no matter if you are physically in light or dark.
Some thoughts to chew on...
Howdy mstorz29,
ReplyDeleteThis piece is a play on the physical and sprititual realms of light and dark. The irony for me is that when I ran out of the physical dark (which was scary for me), I was mocked by people who were living (unafraid) in spiritual darkness as they sat on bar stools in the physical light. As I grew older, I was lured into spiritual darkness believing it was a safe place, seeking relief from the things that tormented me. After all, that's where I saw so many adults hanging out.
I feared the spiritual light because the resultant damage from living in the dark for so long was just going to be too brutal to look at, and I also feared that God would mock me in much the same way those adults from my childhood did. A fear founded in an experience of spiritual abuse from my childhood as well. I did not trust God's motives in exposing my sickness.
It is true there is no darkness in the light. In fact, the darkness flees from the light. But with that said, a point I was making is that we should NEVER become complacent about the spiritual dark, and we should fear it with the same intensity that we feared the physical dark when we were children, and we should not fear the spiritual light because that is where God is and that's where we are made well.
As to the physical dark, I still do my best to avoid it. I have broken several toes and gotten some nasty bumps and bruises navigating the dark. I prefer the physical light too.
Dave Paukner