The darkness is closing in. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear nothing else. Yet, there is nothing else to hear. There is only total silence…silence…deafening silence.
I remember the words: “Trust in the Lord…” “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” “Fear not for I am with you…” But I do fear. I know, I know, the Lord is with me…but where?!
My mind races. It is alternately filled with terror, then the Word, then terror again. My mind screams at me, “Where is your God?” He answers, “Here!” And calm seeps in again.
Still, I find myself here, in this world with enemies on every hand. It is so hard to fight because the enemy is so hard to see. He comes dressed as some of the best people I know; my friends, even. His methods are subtle. Before long, I am back in the dark room of my mind. I am in the fight of my life. Where do I turn? I hear my enemy calling, “Where is your God?”
There is calm again. I remember the words of my Master. I hear Him answer my enemy, “Here I am!”
As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence. O my God, my soul is in despair within me; therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life. I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God (Psalm 42).
God loves you and so do I.
A peaceful spring on the Macedonian side of Lake Ochrid in the Balkan Mountains
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