By Psalm 139:11-12
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
I remember ascending one time in an airplane one on a day that was dark and dreary. I wondered how the pilot could see anything at all as we were consumed in darkness. As we continued pressing upward an interesting thing happened, the night was now as bright as the day. It was not nighttime, but the darkness below made it seem like it was. But now, with precision clarity I could see that above the dark clouds stood a steady and bright sun that was there all along. It was the same brightness, it had just been hidden from me because of the storm below.
I have a fear that darkness will come and cover my family in the days to come. The pain of the previous few days comes over me and my wife like a flood at times. As we lay next to each other this morning, we both began again to cry as we recalled how hard it was to leave my son’s body behind when we took our final steps out of our hospital room. I had leaned down and whispered, “good-bye my son, your daddy loves you;” and my wife, through tears said “I will see you again someday.” We each left moments apart from one another, as I went down to fetch the van and warm it from sitting in 30 degree Minnesota weather. I had not known what my wife said to our son before we talked about it this morning.
2 Corinthians 4:6 says “For God, who said, ‘let light shine out of darkness,’ has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Jesus has shown in my heart. He tells me that darkness shall cover me and that the light about me shall be to me like night. Then he reminds me that darkness is not darkness to God. For even the darkest night is to God, bright as the lightest day. And last he whispers through Psalm 139, “darkness is as light with you.”
When the light of the gospel is nestled in my heart, I see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Knowing that my Savior was crushed with pain as he bore the shame and agony which brought the curse of death upon mankind brings me comfort this morning. Death comes as a result of sin. My son Justus committed no sin, nor was their any deceit found in his little heart that stopped beating. Yet contained in my seed lies a corrupt nature that was passed down to his little broken body. I can not pass down life without passing down death. I am under the curse of death, yet I hope in the promise of life. I know that my sin did not put my son to death, yet I know that without sin, there would be no death. Oh this is hard!
Jesus died for mine and my wife’s sin. My seed cannot become death free, but it has become debt free. The debt has been paid at Calvary for me and so my son will owe nothing in the courtroom of God’s justice. Justus has had justice when Jesus cried “it is finished!”
“Darkness is as light with you!” Help us though another day!
Leading Family Devotions 