When You Struggle to Feel God's LoveExemplo

Love Forms Us In The Darkness

Scripture:

“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light about me be night,’

even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is bright as the day,

for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . . .

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance.”

Psalm 139:11–16 (ESV)

There’s a certainty we can feel in our darkest seasons of pain and mystery: Surely the darkness will consume me. Yet it’s in our darkest night of the soul, where God seems anywhere but with us when we discover the nature of God’s love: it forms us in the darkness.

This is why the psalmist says, “For,” in the phrase, “For you formed my inward parts,” in Psalm 139. In verses 11 and 12, he’s contrasting what we perceive in the darkness (it’s going to swallow me whole!) versus what God sees in the darkness (it’s no threat to Him at all.).

Sure, the darkness doesn’t scare God, but I’m scared to death! I can’t see how a single good thing could come from this dark season! So why should this truth about God comfort me?

The psalmist says, “For.” That means “because.” “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb . . . My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret.”

Remember the creation story? “There was evening and there was morning,” then—boom—a “day” is complete (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31). Dark then light, chaos then order. That’s the rhythm.

Likewise, your own creation story began in literal, physical darkness (your mother’s womb). There you were, hidden from the world—but not from God. In that darkness, the Master Artist was actively working, weaving tendon and muscle, forming skeleton and soul. In that darkness, you didn’t contribute a single thing but your need. Yet here you are now, formed into a whole human being.

Take a look at your head, feet, and everything in between. That was formed in the darkness. You began in darkness, but you were not forgotten. Could you ever fathom what Love is forming in you right now—in the belly of your story’s deepest darkness?

Dark then light. This rhythm continues in Scripture, especially at the story’s climax. Love-in-the-flesh became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), carrying in His body all our sin and sorrow (Isa. 53:4), dying in a noonday darkness (Matt. 27:45). He was buried in the dark belly of the earth. But on the third day . . . well, let’s just say, darkness is as light with Him.

Your doubts, your fear, your shame, your pain—they’re as big of a hindrance to God’s love as was that grave.

Call to Action:

Here’s a writing prompt for you today: When have you been certain that your story, or God’s love for you, was over? When did you realize you were wrong about that?