He Made Darkness His Hiding Place
Father God gave me a special insight today through part of a Sunday school lesson on Hearing God and in something sad my wife encountered this morning. As Olivia and I were talking about it tonight, she encouraged me to write this blog in order to share this revelation gift with you as well.
It's an admittedly strange verse when you first encounter it. It seems to indicate, at the very least, that God is somehow present in the dark and sad things of life, at the very moment when He seems most distant. It does. But, it says even more than that. This verse is God's heart crying out to us in those moments: (as presented in the class) "I am here!" God is telling His children He has a secret place in the midst of the darkness, and He is inviting us not to miss finding Him there.
Our Father, God, sometimes allows Himself to be hidden so we will press into Him and discover new depths to who He is. As Olivia said, in moments like that, "You either seek God or you hate Him. But God is there in the pain waiting to show you beauty."
That's why my wife's tender heart can be a good thing, even when it causes her pain on behalf of others. God wants to use that to teach her (& me) how much He cares for us. What she saw made her long for new life and restoration for another, and that longing gave her new insight into the reality that God's deepest desire is for her, as one of His dearly beloved children, to have life and be made new and whole because of the compassion He bears for her.
Yet, in dark moments like that, our hearts and minds become filled with questions, doubts, and fears. And, we have to search more intentionally for God, which is exactly what He wants, because there are deep things He earnestly longs to share with us about how great He is that we will never look for and could never understand otherwise. Hear that again, there are things about God's heart that He longs for us to know, but which a life free from darkness, suffering, and pain can never teach us.
So, when things are hard and God feels different, and distant, it's actually an invitation to know Him more deeply! Father God is always revealing Himself to us, because He always loves us and always wants a deeper relationship with us. So, even when He is hidden, God wants to show us who He is and where He is and how much He wants us to really learn Him. Even when the skies are grey, they are like a canopy around Him, so that we will answer the cry of His heart to know: "I am here!"
Therefore, even when God seems silent, He is still communicating (speaking Himself); He just isn't using the same "words" we have come to understand more easily. He can't. They are insufficient. He wants to communicate more than any normal means of communication will allow. He needs to show us. He needs us to experience something that draws us to Him so we can know Him in a deeper way.
God in the dark and sad things shows us His heart to be known by us, because He wants us to know all about Him, including what we can't see otherwise.
One of the ways this has happened in my own life was through the death of our son, Josiah, two and a half years ago. We prayed. We believed. We trusted. We worshiped. We believed even more. We believed even when all hope seemed covered in fear. We had visions of who Josiah would be, and how He would love God with his whole life. But, he died... in the womb (just a few days before he could have survived in the world). And, still we believed. Still we prayed. Still we worshiped. Still we knew God's heart was for the life of our son. But, he was born without breathe, and he stayed that way. Even then, I still hoped. I still waited. I still believed with all my heart. We held him. We wept. We worshiped. We prayed. We thanked God for our son. We took pictures of our small family while we could. We prayed some more. And, then we let him go.
We let him go. I let him go. I remember the moment it happened. I remember when I knew that bringing Josiah back wasn't what God was going to do. My son had been gone for days, but that was the moment for me when he actually died. And, I found God in a new way in that moment.
As I watched my wife's heart breaking, and saw her tears and pain beyond bearing, knowing I could do nothing about it... As my own heart died within me, and I finally stopped bargaining with the Lord to take my life for my son's... As we mourned with our friends and family, and as I performed the funeral of the only son I would ever hold in my arms... I found God in a new way.
We both did. We learned Him. We came to understand our Father in ways that no one who has not lost a child like that can ever understand. I came to truly know God's love for me, to see (ever so dimly, yet ever so much more deeply than I had before) how He could bargain away all that He had in Jesus for my sake. I finally got it. I've felt God's heart for my death and separation from Him as few others have.
God was there in my darkness. My dark storm clouds were his canopy. No. They were His Cathedral! God became more beautiful, more real, more amazing, more personal to me in that experience than He ever could have become if that wave of darkness had not driven me to find Him in its midst. And, that is exactly what He wanted that moment to do. I'm not suggesting God planned that heartache. But, I do know He used it to let me learn His heart in ways that would have been impossible otherwise. God was inviting me, longing for me, to know Him in a special way, even as He knew me in a special way by suffering with me in our loss.
So, when I heard that verse this morning, and when Olivia told me about what she had seen and how it had hurt her heart, God began to bring this revelation gift together in my spirit. I began to understand what had happened in me when Josiah died. I was reminded also of how much I love my wife as His gift to me. I was reminded of the great love of God, which I had known in that impossible moment, and I knew that in that moment...
The key verse is Psalm 18:11:
"He made darkness His hiding place, dark storm clouds His canopy around Him."
It's an admittedly strange verse when you first encounter it. It seems to indicate, at the very least, that God is somehow present in the dark and sad things of life, at the very moment when He seems most distant. It does. But, it says even more than that. This verse is God's heart crying out to us in those moments: (as presented in the class) "I am here!" God is telling His children He has a secret place in the midst of the darkness, and He is inviting us not to miss finding Him there.
Our Father, God, sometimes allows Himself to be hidden so we will press into Him and discover new depths to who He is. As Olivia said, in moments like that, "You either seek God or you hate Him. But God is there in the pain waiting to show you beauty."
That's why my wife's tender heart can be a good thing, even when it causes her pain on behalf of others. God wants to use that to teach her (& me) how much He cares for us. What she saw made her long for new life and restoration for another, and that longing gave her new insight into the reality that God's deepest desire is for her, as one of His dearly beloved children, to have life and be made new and whole because of the compassion He bears for her.
Yet, in dark moments like that, our hearts and minds become filled with questions, doubts, and fears. And, we have to search more intentionally for God, which is exactly what He wants, because there are deep things He earnestly longs to share with us about how great He is that we will never look for and could never understand otherwise. Hear that again, there are things about God's heart that He longs for us to know, but which a life free from darkness, suffering, and pain can never teach us.
So, when things are hard and God feels different, and distant, it's actually an invitation to know Him more deeply! Father God is always revealing Himself to us, because He always loves us and always wants a deeper relationship with us. So, even when He is hidden, God wants to show us who He is and where He is and how much He wants us to really learn Him. Even when the skies are grey, they are like a canopy around Him, so that we will answer the cry of His heart to know: "I am here!"
Therefore, even when God seems silent, He is still communicating (speaking Himself); He just isn't using the same "words" we have come to understand more easily. He can't. They are insufficient. He wants to communicate more than any normal means of communication will allow. He needs to show us. He needs us to experience something that draws us to Him so we can know Him in a deeper way.
God in the dark and sad things shows us His heart to be known by us, because He wants us to know all about Him, including what we can't see otherwise.
One of the ways this has happened in my own life was through the death of our son, Josiah, two and a half years ago. We prayed. We believed. We trusted. We worshiped. We believed even more. We believed even when all hope seemed covered in fear. We had visions of who Josiah would be, and how He would love God with his whole life. But, he died... in the womb (just a few days before he could have survived in the world). And, still we believed. Still we prayed. Still we worshiped. Still we knew God's heart was for the life of our son. But, he was born without breathe, and he stayed that way. Even then, I still hoped. I still waited. I still believed with all my heart. We held him. We wept. We worshiped. We prayed. We thanked God for our son. We took pictures of our small family while we could. We prayed some more. And, then we let him go.
We let him go. I let him go. I remember the moment it happened. I remember when I knew that bringing Josiah back wasn't what God was going to do. My son had been gone for days, but that was the moment for me when he actually died. And, I found God in a new way in that moment.
As I watched my wife's heart breaking, and saw her tears and pain beyond bearing, knowing I could do nothing about it... As my own heart died within me, and I finally stopped bargaining with the Lord to take my life for my son's... As we mourned with our friends and family, and as I performed the funeral of the only son I would ever hold in my arms... I found God in a new way.
We both did. We learned Him. We came to understand our Father in ways that no one who has not lost a child like that can ever understand. I came to truly know God's love for me, to see (ever so dimly, yet ever so much more deeply than I had before) how He could bargain away all that He had in Jesus for my sake. I finally got it. I've felt God's heart for my death and separation from Him as few others have.
God was there in my darkness. My dark storm clouds were his canopy. No. They were His Cathedral! God became more beautiful, more real, more amazing, more personal to me in that experience than He ever could have become if that wave of darkness had not driven me to find Him in its midst. And, that is exactly what He wanted that moment to do. I'm not suggesting God planned that heartache. But, I do know He used it to let me learn His heart in ways that would have been impossible otherwise. God was inviting me, longing for me, to know Him in a special way, even as He knew me in a special way by suffering with me in our loss.
So, when I heard that verse this morning, and when Olivia told me about what she had seen and how it had hurt her heart, God began to bring this revelation gift together in my spirit. I began to understand what had happened in me when Josiah died. I was reminded also of how much I love my wife as His gift to me. I was reminded of the great love of God, which I had known in that impossible moment, and I knew that in that moment...
"He made darkness His hiding place, dark storm clouds His canopy around Him."
[Psalm 18:11]
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