From Darkness to Glory

O God, no silence for You!  Do not be mute and do not be quiet, God.  For, look, Your enemies rage, and those who hate You lift their heads.  Against Your people they devise cunning counsel and conspire against Your protected ones….

O God, make them like the thistledown, like straw before the wind.  As fire burns down forests and as flame ignites the mountains, so shall You pursue them with Your storm and with Your tempest dismay them.  Fill their faces with infamy that they may seek Your name, O Lord.  May they be shamed and dismayed forever, may they be disgraced and may they perish.  And may they know that You, Your name is the Lord.  You alone are most high over all the earth.  

Psalm 83:1-4 and 14-19 (The Hebrew Bible, Alter Translation)

I’ve been thinking about God’s miraculous plan for human transformation, for regeneration, for bringing dead people to life.  While He does indeed transform individuals, He does so in His time according to His sovereign plan, and He often waits until we have traveled through darkness.  It is often through darkness that He reveals His glory.

This was even so for King David.  He was God’s chosen leader, anointed as king of God’s nation, yet David struggled through times of darkness when God seemed absent, and David cried out to God to reveal Himself and intervene on his behalf.  Let’s consider a few examples of David’s writing where he struggles, is under attack, and God seems absent, and in that time of darkness when he does not experience God’s presence, David cries out to God, trusting that God will indeed reveal Himself and help at the right time.

Psalm 35 begins:

Take my part, Lord, against my contesters, fight those who fight against me.  Steady the shield and the buckler, and rise up to my help.  Unsheathe the spear to the haft against my pursuers.  Let them be shamed and disgraced, who seek my life.  Let them retreat, be abased, who plot harm against me.  Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the Lord’s messenger driving.  Make their ways be darkness and slippery paths, with the Lord’s messenger chasing them.  Psalm 35:1-6 (The Hebrew Bible, Alter Translation)

Writing Psalm 35, David is under attack, and he cries out asking God to intervene directly in his situation.  He asks God to do horrific things to his enemies – to blow them like chaff in the wind and to make their path frightening and dangerous.  In Psalm 83, David laments God’s silence and asks God to reveal Himself in the battle.

O God, no silence for You!  Do not be mute and do not be quiet, God.  For, look, Your enemies rage, and those who hate You lift their heads.  Against Your people they devise cunning counsel and conspire against Your protected ones….

O God, make them like the thistledown, like straw before the wind.  As fire burns down forests and as flame ignites the mountains, so shall You pursue them with Your storm and with Your tempest dismay them.  Fill their faces with infamy that they may seek Your name, O Lord.  May they be shamed and dismayed forever, may they be disgraced and may they perish.  And may they know that You, Your name is the Lord.  You alone are most high over all the earth.  Psalm 83:1-4 and 14-19 (The Hebrew Bible, Alter Translation)

He prays that God will show up and act on behalf of His people, and attack those who devise plans against His people, and he prays this so the enemies will see and believe that God is Lord, that He is who He claims to be, that He is indeed Most High over all the earth.  In the prayer we see David’s desperation in his time of darkness and in his desperation, he cries out to God, and he asks God to inflict darkness on his enemies so that they might see God.  God’s glory is revealed through darkness, and David asks that God force darkness upon them so that they see God.

Psalm 109 begins with a similar cry:

God of my praise, do not be silent.  For the wicked’s mouth, the mouth of deceit, has opened against me, they spoke to me with lying tongue.  And words of hatred swarmed round me – they battle me for no cause.  Psalm 109:1-2 (The Hebrew Bible, Alter Translation)

David continues asking God to do a long list of horrific things to his enemies and concludes by restating his trust in the Lord.

God reveals His glory through darkness, through pain, through suffering.  And the ultimate expression of darkness leading to glory is the cross.  It is through the cross and the awful reality of it that we find life.  It is through the cross that we find light and love.

Jesus is the light.  Darkness ends at Jesus.  We know this and trust this and find our hope in this, but at times God seems distant and silent and we struggle in darkness.  And this is consistent with what we see in Scripture.  Think of every person healed by Jesus.  They struggled for a long time in darkness before God revealed His glory to them and through them.

Think of the man blind from birth who Jesus made whole.  He had lived in darkness his entire life.  And then one day Jesus made Him whole.  And Lazarus, Jesus’ close friend, who struggled to the point of death, and on the fourth day in the tomb, Jesus gave him new life.  Every person Jesus healed had struggled in darkness for some period.  This includes lots and lots of people.  Consider two passages.

He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.  They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.  Luke 6:17-19

And later in His ministry…

On their return the apostles told Jesus all they had done. He took them with him and withdrew privately to a city called Bethsaida. When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.  Luke 9:10-11

I am not sure who this is for other than me, but if it is for you, please know that whatever battle you are facing, God is with you.  Even if He seems absent, God is with you.  God is sovereign.  God is in control.  God has this.  And if you are not currently engaged in battle, please know that others around you are.  Please lift them up.  Encourage them.  Help them remember that God reveals His glory through darkness in His perfect time in His perfect way.

God has a miraculous plan for human transformation, for regeneration, for bringing dead people to life.  While He transforms according to His sovereign plan, He often waits until we have traveled through darkness.  It is often through darkness that His glory is revealed.

As Paul writes,

 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.  Romans 11:36 

It is all for God’s glory.  To Him be the glory forever.  Amen.