Wherever You Are

Even the darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to you. – David

Wherever you are – God is there.

If you are in a season of wonder and delight – God is there. If you are experiencing blessing and abundance – God is there. If you are questioning and doubting – God is there. If you are disappointed and weary – God is there. If you are hurting, troubled, or anxious – God is there. If you are in the darkest place imaginable – God is there.

Do you believe that?

Like most of you, I have days when I soak in the goodness of God and live out of the overflow of His presence. But I also have days (or days on end) when I forget to lean into His presence. On one of those darker days, I read Psalm 139. As I contemplated where I was in life, I felt anxious. But as I contemplated the words of the psalm, I heard God’s invitation to me, “Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you.” (Psalm 139:12 NASB)

Clarity sprung off the page of my Bible. When I lean into darkness, darkness circulates. When I lean into God, His light shines. Even what seems to be a place of impenetrable darkness to us, God’s light can fill. Why? Because He is light. He is so good, pure, and bright that night is like day to Him. Which means he can turn my night to day and my darkness into light. Maybe that means my circumstances change, and perhaps it doesn’t. But what it definitely means is that I can embrace His presence in any and every place.

The words of David recorded in this psalm are so familiar to me that I could quote most of them verbatim. Yet, often, their truth remains unapplied. Instead of acknowledging God’s presence, sometimes I question where He is. I wonder if He is the all-powerful God, why isn’t He answering my prayers? I don’t understand why I can’t feel and sense His presence the same way I have in other seasons. I ask myself if I am a true disciple or if I am missing out on all that God has.

But then, I am reminded that God’s presence is not limited by what I see, hear, feel, or experience. His ways are not the same as my ways. The expression of His love does not always come in the form I expect or demand.

God knows everything about me – when I sit and when I stand, where I am going, and what I am contemplating. Even before I can verbalize my thoughts, my God knows them all. If I rise to the highest level humanly possible, God is present; and if I intentionally run toward the darkest hell, God is present.

Wherever you are, God is there. His presence is inescapable.

We cannot change the truth, but we can choose our response. Will we press into God’s presence and embrace His light, or will we stuff down our emotions, run the other way, deny His goodness, or embrace the darkness?

This morning, as I was listening to the Lectio 365 app, the devotional focus was on Jesus’s words in John 15 – that when we abide in Him, we bear much fruit. When we function apart from Him, we can do nothing. The same devotional reading included a quote from Theophan the Recluse, “To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all seeing, within you.”

Wherever you are today – God is ever-present and all-seeing. He is a God who dwells within His people. And He is inviting us to connect our minds and our hearts together to experience the light of His presence.