Darkness and Light

“If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.” (Psalm 139:11-12)

In this Psalm, David writes of God’s all seeing eye and inescapable presence. He starts by recognizing that God knows everything about us, and that he is ALWAYS near us. There is no place we can go to escape His presence. Then the above verses stood out to me. Darkness and light are alike to God? I thought back to the Creation story written in Genesis so I went there to see if I was remembering it right. I re-read Chapter 1, and it would seem that what we know as light and dark were created for us, not for God. In Genesis we read about the first day of creation:

“Then God said “Let there be light”; and there was light”. God saw that the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day” (Genesis 1:3-5)

OK, sounds like night and day to me, right? But read on – starting in verse 14 we read what God created on the fourth day:

“Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.

God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.” (Genesis 1:14-19)

So if day and night were created on day one, but the sun and moon weren’t created until day four, does that mean God was working in the dark for the first 3 days? It appears that night or day are the same as light and dark to him, just was David wrote. We can be comforted by the fact that even in our darkest hour, God knows where we are and how we feel.

While we may feel hidden, and at times even comfort in the dark, there is no darkness to God. Try as we might we cannot escape His presence. That should be a comforting thought, which fits right in with the knowledge that God will never leave your or forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6; Deuteronomy 31:8; Joshua 1:5; 1 Kings 8:57; 1 Chronicles 28:20; Psalms 37:28; Psalms 94:14; Isaiah 41:17; Isaiah 42:16; Hebrews 13:5)

We may leave God, but He will never leave us, no matter how bleak the situation, no matter how empty we feel. His presence is everywhere, which brings light into any situation.