Called Out of Darkness
Illustration
Stories
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (v. 9)
Have you been through dark times in your life? Darkness comes into all of our lives at one time or another. Sometimes these painful seasons can be overwhelming.
Consider these words of wisdom from the 139th Psalm. The next time you find yourself drowning in darkness — when it seems your life is falling apart, when all that made sense no longer makes sense, when your joy is gone, when you feel like you have lost the one person or the one thing that gave meaning to your life, when you are tempted to give up hope, when all you can see before you is darkness — pray this prayer of the psalmist:
“If I say, ‘surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the dark is not dark to you; the night is as bright as day, for the darkness is as light to you.” (Ps 139:11&12)
Imagine finding God in the dark. We usually think of God coming to us in the light. The scriptures are filled with images of light which point to healing and salvation. After all, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world….”
We cannot live without light. Light is something that every living thing has to have. Put a plant into a dark room and it will die or become dormant until it is brought back into the light. People become depressed if they don’t get enough sunlight. There is something about the light. But there is something about darkness, too, which the psalmist discovered on some dark night of the soul: “…even the dark is not dark to you.”
There are many kinds of darkness. Winston Churchill inherited a predisposition to severe mood swings from his father’s family. He called this recurring depression “the black dog.” It was sometimes quite debilitating, causing Churchill to spend weeks or months in bed with no appetite, little energy and difficulty concentrating. He finally sought medical treatment and he learned from it, saying, “We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival."
Joan Borysenko found, in her work with cancer and AIDS patients, that healing sometimes begins in darkness, or because of darkness. Answering questions about the soul and the higher self in an interview for a book edited by Rex Hauck, she was asked about darkness: “…we love the stories of light, but we like to repress the darkness…” Light comes, Borysenko discovered, when her patients were going through a dark night of the soul: “Suddenly the bottom of life had dropped out from under them, and when that happens, you come face-to-face with the big questions: Who am I; what is the meaning of life… Usually it isn’t until we get to that really dark moment that we ask these big questions.”
There is much to be learned in darkness. Sometimes we need a period of personal darkness to see clearly. Thomas Moore, one of my favorite spiritual writers, put it this way in his book, Care of the Soul:
"Perhaps the dark night comes upon you from inside or outside to wake you up, to stir you and steer you toward a new life. I believe this is the message of most religions, and certainly it is the gist of Christianity and Buddhism. Your dark night may be a bardo, a period of apparent lifelessness that precedes a new birth of meaning. Maybe your dark night is a gestation, a coming into being of a level of existence you have never dreamed of. Maybe your dark night is one big ironical challenge, just the opposite of what it appears to be — not a dying, but a birthing."
There are times to embrace darkness so that we can be born anew “…out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
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StoryShare, May 7, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
Have you been through dark times in your life? Darkness comes into all of our lives at one time or another. Sometimes these painful seasons can be overwhelming.
Consider these words of wisdom from the 139th Psalm. The next time you find yourself drowning in darkness — when it seems your life is falling apart, when all that made sense no longer makes sense, when your joy is gone, when you feel like you have lost the one person or the one thing that gave meaning to your life, when you are tempted to give up hope, when all you can see before you is darkness — pray this prayer of the psalmist:
“If I say, ‘surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the dark is not dark to you; the night is as bright as day, for the darkness is as light to you.” (Ps 139:11&12)
Imagine finding God in the dark. We usually think of God coming to us in the light. The scriptures are filled with images of light which point to healing and salvation. After all, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world….”
We cannot live without light. Light is something that every living thing has to have. Put a plant into a dark room and it will die or become dormant until it is brought back into the light. People become depressed if they don’t get enough sunlight. There is something about the light. But there is something about darkness, too, which the psalmist discovered on some dark night of the soul: “…even the dark is not dark to you.”
There are many kinds of darkness. Winston Churchill inherited a predisposition to severe mood swings from his father’s family. He called this recurring depression “the black dog.” It was sometimes quite debilitating, causing Churchill to spend weeks or months in bed with no appetite, little energy and difficulty concentrating. He finally sought medical treatment and he learned from it, saying, “We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival."
Joan Borysenko found, in her work with cancer and AIDS patients, that healing sometimes begins in darkness, or because of darkness. Answering questions about the soul and the higher self in an interview for a book edited by Rex Hauck, she was asked about darkness: “…we love the stories of light, but we like to repress the darkness…” Light comes, Borysenko discovered, when her patients were going through a dark night of the soul: “Suddenly the bottom of life had dropped out from under them, and when that happens, you come face-to-face with the big questions: Who am I; what is the meaning of life… Usually it isn’t until we get to that really dark moment that we ask these big questions.”
There is much to be learned in darkness. Sometimes we need a period of personal darkness to see clearly. Thomas Moore, one of my favorite spiritual writers, put it this way in his book, Care of the Soul:
"Perhaps the dark night comes upon you from inside or outside to wake you up, to stir you and steer you toward a new life. I believe this is the message of most religions, and certainly it is the gist of Christianity and Buddhism. Your dark night may be a bardo, a period of apparent lifelessness that precedes a new birth of meaning. Maybe your dark night is a gestation, a coming into being of a level of existence you have never dreamed of. Maybe your dark night is one big ironical challenge, just the opposite of what it appears to be — not a dying, but a birthing."
There are times to embrace darkness so that we can be born anew “…out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 7, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
