Though the Darkness Hide Thee

“I will lead the blind by a way they do not know,
In paths they do not know I will guide them.
I will make darkness into light before them
And rugged places into plains.
These are the things I will do,
And I will not leave them undone.”

Isaiah 42:16

I had forgotten to anticipate those horrible eye drops. Each time my yearly eye exam rolls around, I naively think to myself, “I’ll just pop in, pop out, and have a joyously productive afternoon.” Yet every year, I leave with stinging, dilated eyes and pupils the size of a cat’s, utterly incapacitated for the next 4-6 hours. 

This Tuesday was no different. As I stumbled out of the dark optometrist’s office into the piercing afternoon light, I thanked God that I had chosen to walk the short distance from my house this year, having subconsciously internalized last year’s lesson called: “DRIVING WITH IMPAIRED VISION IS A BAD IDEA.”

Facing in what I dearly hoped was the right direction, I began to stagger home, engaging that delicate balance between watching for traffic and keeping my head down to avoid the bright light. Meanwhile, a teenage girl whizzed past me on her skateboard in sharp contrast to my slow and feeble progress. “Good for her,” I thought as I inched towards home while cowering from the sun like a vampire, “She’s a cool girl on a skateboard.”

At long last, I made it home and shut all the curtains, collapsing on the couch and typing “how long do dilation drops last” into my phone with an embarrassing amount of spelling errors. The answer? Four to Six hours. Looking back from my lofty position of wisdom two days later, I can sheepishly see how “losing” four to six hours was no big deal. There were still things I could do with my hands, like folding laundry, emptying the dishwasher, and eating consolation cookies.

But before doing all those things, I lay on the couch in the dark wondering why I felt so frustrated. Eventually, I realized I was operating under the belief that the only things worth engaging were the things I could see.

Sobered by this unsettling truth, I began to wonder: What does this look like on a spiritual level?

How do we respond when our “vision” of how we thought life would be is taken away from us?

What do we do when the lights go out and we are plunged into darkness, no longer able to see God at work in our lives?

My eventual response to not being able to see clearly with my eyes was to try to see with my hands. Given the choice, I still would have chosen to see with my eyes. But engaging with my hands turned out to be a gift; as I focused on the tasks ‘at hand,’ my breathing slowed and my attention narrowed only to what was in front of me. I found joy in simplicity and in not worrying about what I could not see. When we find ourselves plunged into physical darkness, our perception shifts from distant horizons to present realities. We focus only on what is directly around us, as what is peripheral becomes unimportant.

Could the same be true for spiritual darkness?

Is it possible that spiritual darkness is not blindness, but the holy threshold of another, deeper way of seeing?

There are times in our lives that catch us utterly by surprise: losing a loved one or a job, a devastating diagnosis, betrayal by someone we trusted. In an instant, the ‘lights’ go out and everything on our hopeful horizon fades to black. We are forced to focus only on the smallest next step. Sometimes it is difficult enough to remember to breathe, let alone move. Yet no matter how disorienting it feels to find ourselves in the dark, this precious choice is always before us:

We can believe that God has abandoned us because cannot see him.

OR

We can believe that God is faithful to teach us how to see him in the dark.

A biblical example of someone who learned to see God in the dark was Moses, who first saw God through the glory of a desert bush ablaze with light. Moses heard God speak his name clearly, inviting Moses to know Him and trust him. Later, Moses and the Israelites were asked to follow God in the middle of the night out of Egypt and into the desert. Still, God provided a cloud of fire to guide them so they could look up and take courage. Years of desert wandering later, God invites Moses to behold him not in the light of the bush or the pillar of fire, but in a cloud of darkness on Mt. Sinai.

In Exodus 33, God tells Moses that it is time to pack up camp and keep moving the Israelites towards the promised land. In response, Moses agrees to move only if God will go with them. When God assures Moses that he will indeed go with them, Moses rather boldly demands:

“Now show me your glory.”
(Exodus 33:18)

Essentially, God responds with “Sure, I will reveal my goodness and glory to you, but not in the way you expect. I will allow you to see me not in the light, but in darkness.”

Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock.
When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
(Exodus 33:21-23)

I wonder if Moses was disappointed that God’s chose to reveal his glory in darkness. I imagine his definition of “seeing God’s glory” looked a lot more like sight and a lot less like…not seeing. But something truly remarkable happens to Moses in the darkness: even though he cannot see God with his eyes, the presence of God causes him to fall down in worship.

Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. Lord,” he said, “if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us.
(Exodus 34:8-9)

Did you catch that? “If I have found favor in your eyes, then go with us,” he says. Not “If I can see you with my own eyes, I will trust with you to go with us.” In a beautiful paradox, Moses realizes that even if he couldn’t see God, God saw HIM. And it was enough.

What happens next as Moses comes down from the darkness of God at Mt. Sinai is stunning:

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.
(Exodus 34:29)

Meeting God in the darkness caused Moses’s face to radiate with light. Even if he couldn’t see the fruit of his time in the darkness, the light which emanated from him was clear for all of Israel to see. There are people in my life who have endured great tragedy and hardship through seemingly unending seasons of darkness. But for those who know God, I have seen an inner light shining through eyes wet with tears—an unquenchable flame that no amount of darkness can extinguish.  

“Holy, Holy, Holy, though the darkness hide Thee,” goes the old hymn.

May we, like Moses, be given eyes of faith that worship and reflect God’s shining—no matter how dark the night.

Amen.