Walk in Wisdom

Psalm 77:6

I will remember my song in the night . . .

Darkness is actually more than the absence of light. It is also a place of fear, emptiness, and loneliness. Eliezer Wiesel experienced this darkness. As a teenager, he was sent to the concentration camp. He witnessed all the Jews in his village banded together, stripped of their possessions, and loaded into cattle cars. He saw his mother, little sister, and all his family disappear into an oven fueled with human flesh. He saw children hanged and weak men killed by fellow prisoners for a piece of bread. Wiesel wrote of the night the train in which he was riding pulled up at the camp and his experience with the horrific sights, sounds and smells. The darkness found its way into Elie’s heart. He claims that his God died as well.

But there was another person who entered that same dark night; she came forth as a shining light. Her name was Corrie ten Boom. She and her family had been discovered aiding Jews and had been sent to one of the German death camps as well. She, too, witnessed the horrors of the camp. But in her account of the terrible things which transpired all around her, there was a thread of hope. She wrote of the Bible study that some of the Jews held in secret, of the hymn singing, and of the many acts of compassion and sacrifice they offered to one another. Throughout her days of blackness, Corrie continued to trust God.

The author of Psalm 77:6 found himself in a dark, empty place where God seemed distant. But as the darkness deepened, the volume of his song increased. He committed to singing in the middle of his long, dark night. The same is true for us. The darker the night grows, the more we see God’s light shining around us—if we’re willing to look with the eyes of faith and trust. Are you experiencing darkness? Does God seem distant? Let me encourage you to look farther ahead by faith . . . the faithful light of Christ is inviting you to take just one more step in His direction.