Each evening, just before the sun fades behind the clouds, I sit on the back step and watch the shadows overtake the space. As the light fades and the shadows take over, the cicada begin to stir and their song becomes violently loud. At the same time, the frogs and toads in the nearby pond start their nightly calls. An owl hoots in the distance, the sky splashes red to pink and the night symphony of shadow sounds begin to fill the air.
It’s a fascinating, brilliantly beautiful moment of the day. But—these are things that can only be experienced in the shadows. The cicada do not sing in the middle of a sun bright day. The frogs do not call at noon when the world is all lit up. The owls rarely hoot in the heat of a summer day.
Why then are we so afraid of the dark?
In order for the world in which we live to be the world in which we live, there is night and day, there is dark and light, there is life and death, they is grief and sadness, there is joy and happiness. We have been brought into this world and all of these things are part of this amazingly exhilarating experience we call life.
If we avoid the shadows, we’ll never hear the night symphony. We’ll never hear the song of the frogs and cicada.
If we avoid the shadows, we’ll never experience the beauty of a red and pink splashed sky.
If we avoid the shadows, we’ll never experience the illumination of a full moon casting it mysterious glow on everything around us.
And here is the good news: Even in the shadows, God is with us. Even in the dark, God’s presence does not leave us. I might even dare to say, it is in those shadow-moments in our lives that we experience the presence of God in a more palpable and deeper way. Here is what the greatest lyricist of all time had to say about it:
Psalm 139:7
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
So my friends, don’t fear the darkness; don’t avoid the shadows when they fall—there is something to be experienced there that is unavailable to us at any other place in our lives.