Life’s painful trials can bring shame about our inadequate and broken
faith. There is relief in hearing the expressions of desperation in the
psalmist’s voice. He didn’t experience this life perfected, and we don’t
either. But the psalmist was loved. So are we.
God was so kind to give us the Psalms.
To
walk through darkened days is part of the human experience. To walk
through them with faith, comfort, strength, joy, and hope is part of the
divine experience. Our eyes, though, are often clouded to those
blessings by the thing oppressing us. When we remember and recognize our
Father’s faithfulness, when we see reality with the eyes of
understanding, the darkness ebbs and the light of hope grows. The
impossible, unbearable, and unthinkable becomes the hidden passageway to
truth, hope, and joy in Christ.
These letters were originally
written as encouragement to a friend when the darkness began to overtake
his path. Each day for 22 days, a letter arrived with one of the
eight-verse sections from Psalm 119 along with a small thought to bring
light and hope and to be a reminder that we do not fight our battles
alone. The letters, along with nine more devotions on the subject of
experiencing God in the dark, make up this powerful, honest, hope-filled
31-day devotional.