When Darkness Is My Closest Friend
BRD REFLECTIONS:
1 Kings 14:1-31 and Psalm 88 (NIV)
(Wong Ee Hwee, PTM, Worship & Music Ministry)
READ:
Psalm 88 (NIV)
OBSERVE:
The psalmist cries out to God in his distress. He is overwhelmed with troubles. His life is hanging on a thin thread. Depleted of all strength, he feels no different from one waiting for death. His closest friends have deserted him. He feels cut off from the God of compassion. He is all alone.
Yet he calls to the LORD – every day (v9). He wrestles with God with all transparency and vulnerability. Why does the psalmist do so even when he feels that God has abandoned him, when darkness has become his closest friend?
APPLY:
What do I do when I am in distress, when I am disheartened and discouraged? I cry out to God. Like the psalmist who is relentless in his pleas with God, I can do so too. Through the tears and wrestles, I believe I will gradually yield to His Sovereign will, and rest in the shadows of His wings. I will gradually learn to be still and let the living and active God who sees all things and knows all hearts bring about justice and healing in His own time and way.
DO:
This psalm reminds me of the conversations I have had with individuals who were and are struggling with mental anguish. When I feel that darkness has become my closest friend, I am encouraged by a hymn by George Matheson who wrote the following words during his “most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering.”
PRAY:
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee.
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths its flow
may richer, fuller be.
O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee.
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
that in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
may brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee.
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
and feel the promise is not vain,
that morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee.
I lay in dust, life’s glory dead,
and from the ground there blossoms red,
life that shall endless be.
“O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go: Stories from the Remarkable Biography of George Matheson—Effects of Blindness—A Touching Experience.” The Advance (1867-1917); Chicago Vol. 55, Issue 2205 (Feb 13, 1908), 203.
