Light and Dark

If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. ~ I John 1:6-7

Each year, I try to really focus on asking the Lord to teach me at least one very specific thing.  In January 2009, I asked God to teach me what it means to walk in the light, to show me how to do that.  I knew there was darkness that needed to be dealt with, and I had just come to a point in my life and my walk with the Lord where I wanted light more than I wanted to maintain the facade of holiness I'd been carefully hiding behind.  It was one of those prayers I knew might lead to a painful process, but something deep inside was compelling me foward.

It's almost the end of 2009.  I just let out a huge sigh even saying that, thinking about this year and the journey I've been on.  I've mentioned plenty of times "the darkness" I've wrestled with this year.  I even spent a couple of months in counseling trying to come to terms with what was weighing me down so oppressively.  Ultimately, there was sin in my life that needed to be faced, revealed, dealt with.  Rather than putting all my energy toward concealing it, I began putting energy into repenting of it, asking others to face it with me, and dragging it into the light.

It's not been a straight path or an easy path.  I'm still traveling it in many ways.  But, today a very familiar passage became new again, and I just have to talk about it.

Psalm 139.  I read it this morning and genuinely felt like I was having a dialogue with the Lord sitting right there in my living room.

"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me!"  As I read the familiar words about how God knows when I sit and when I rise, how He knows the thoughts in my head before any of them reaches my lips, how He prepares a path for me, how there is no where I can go that would take me out of His presence ... "such knowledge is too wonderful for me" truly was the only appropriate response. 

Then I got to verses 11-12, "If I say 'surely the darkness will cover me, and the light about me be night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as day, for darkness is as light to you."

I was stunned.

That darkness I was so afraid to face.  The things that terrified me.  The things I hate most about myself.  The things I was sure would finally, at last drive someone, especially a Holy Someone away from me.  They weren't even dark to Him.  They didn't even make Him blink.  His eyes needed no time to adjust.  He just shed His brilliance over them, as I dragged them out, He covered them as only He can.

I continued making my way through the passage, letting a fresh awareness of God's personal knowledge of and hand in my life wash over me.  

"Search me, O God, and know my heart.  Try me and know my thoughts.  See if there is any grievous way in me, and lead me in the path everlasting."

My walk through this passage today ended much like my journey through 2009 began, with a simple but earnest prayer that I be searched and known, examined and lead away from darkness into Light.  My prayer now is that the Light would only increase more and more in the days ahead.