I stand in the valley as darkness closes in, surrounds me from all sides and consumes me until the darkness is all I have left.
I drown in my own doubts and fears, choke on tears of frustration as I lament my pitiful station and resign to accept defeat.
Further I walk into the shadows, lost and alone. No company besides my own restless thoughts.
Finally I cry, “Lord, have you left me to wander in despair, dissolve into nothingness? I beg you, clear the air, where are you?”
No answer, so I run. Fast and far with no concern for where my path my take me. With no light to guide my path I crash into walls, trip and fall, but I keep on running until I’m bruised and scarred, too far gone, too broken to continue on.
I’ve had enough and I cry out again – this time not a plea, but a command. Although I have no right to demand I just can’t seem to understand the state I’ve found myself in.
“Reveal yourself!” I say it again. “Reveal yourself – I don’t know where you’ve been.” This time, this time, I finally hear back.
“Daughter, I never left.”
Now this offers no relief, no soothing of my grief and I am furious. My temper’s short and I retort “Then why? Why this? I searched, I sought, but was it all for naught? Because it seems that way to me.”
“You were looking” he says, “in all the wrong places. You turned to the world for answers when I am the one who wrote those answers. Now turn back. Run.”
“Run? The thing that sent me into the dark?” Now this, I think, is stark contrast to the logic I’d expect but I begin to suspect he’s not done.
“Turn. Run towards me. Take my hand and no one else’s.”
Then, there, I stop downing.
He reached down from on high and took hold of me. He drew me out of deep waters – the waters that rise and waves that crash over my head, leaving me for dead until he rescued me from my powerful enemy (and after all I can be my own worst enemy) who was too strong for me.
He rescued me because he DELIGHTED in me. Delighted, no trite reason, no obligation, nothing by my own persuasion. For there is nothing to make me righteous, nothing of my own might, just my father’s all-sufficient grace. He will not turn his face from me.
He leaves behind the ninety-nine to find the one lost, no matter the cost, no matter what that one has done. I am found, I am alive, by his mercy only I survive.
He rescued me because he DELIGHTS in me.
(I woke up one day with Psalm 18 on my heart. I decided to write a poem around it, and used an abstract take on my own testimony to set the scene. God has brought me out of so much darkness, and I know that is by his will alone that I am here. Not just on the World Race, but here on earth.
He rescued me. He can rescue you too – will you let him?)
