The God Who Walks Beside Us

 

Yesterday was a really good day. I spent most of it with our wonderful staff in planning and working at our weekly team meeting day. The day ended with the opportunity to begin a new small group discussion class that will run for six weeks. I had a full house of wonderful people to share the journey. Somewhere in between I had a few minutes to catch up with an old friend, on the phone of all things! It was a day spent doing work that I love with people that I love. It was a day when I realized once again that I have been a lucky man.

As I headed to my truck to make my way home and call it a day, I noticed a spectacular sky. Though it was late, the sky seemed so bright. The clouds were distinct and even a touch of the blue of the day remained. Yet it was dark enough for the lights in the cupola to be visible. It was a striking and beautiful sight.

So much of life is a strange mix of darkness and light. Oh, sometimes it is stark and clear, the distance between the two. Good days and bad days. Successes and failures. Joys and sorrows. But as I get older I have come to experience life more often as a mixture of the two. And, as with the sky last night, I am coming to the place of sometimes seeing that there can be profound beauty in that combination.

In my favorite Psalm we read, “Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” God sees us in the dark as well as in the light. God is with us in the dark as well as in the light. In our days and nights of shifting shadows and constantly changing circumstances, the constant through them all is the God who walks beside us.

Peace.