God Was In The Darkness, & I Did Not Know It
When things get dark.
One of my favorite books, you know, one of those ones you keep reading again and again, is “God Was In This Place & I Did Not Know It” by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. It’s a collection of various rabbis understandings and thoughts on the passage in Genesis 28:16 where Jacob wakes up from a dream and exclaims … well, he yells the title to Rabbi Lawrence’s book. It has been a constant reminder to me to be aware of God’s presence with me at all times. It always amazes me how blind we are to the miraculous that hides just behind the ordinary, and just beneath the mundane minutiae of our daily lives. It’s one of the things about my character that I am most frustrated with. This past week was another reminder for me.
Some of you who know me well are already aware of this, but for those of you that are new to the wonderful world of Nathan (by the way, that last part was completely sarcastic), I thought I would fill you in on some back-story. Since I was a teenager, I have struggled with depression. Over the years, the actual diagnosis has changed and shifted, but at the core of it has always been this constant dark companion. Now, before you go feeling too bad for me, please know that that I am doing just fine and am getting pretty good at living with it. I have an incredibly stable, strong and wonderful wife, and a very understanding and talented psychiatrist, and between the two of them, they keep me fairly sane. That being said, I don’t really want to be too sane; after all, sane people rarely change the world, and I’m planning on doing just that … eventually.
This past week was a tough week. It’s not that I was drowning in the depths of depression, or anything like that, it was just a low week. They happen every now and then, and you just need to wait them out, kind of like the flu, without the weight-loss. What bothers me about these times is how hard it is for me to see God and to know that he is present. Well, maybe “know” is the wrong word. That’s the problem with the dark times, it’s not what we know that’s in question, it’s more a question of what we feel. In the dark times, I have a hard time feeling that God is present. I don’t know if this is what prompted it, but I ended up reading through a few of the Old Testament prophets. I was struck by quite a few things, some of which I will probably share with you over the next little while, but what prompted this blog was the realization that even in the midst of some of Israel’s darkest moments, God was passionately present with them. Even when the troubles were brought about as part of God’s discipline, his heart was still beating with deep love for his people. In Jeremiah, as God thinks about the dark times that are coming for Israel he says, “Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart! My heart pounds within me, I cannot keep silent.” (Jeremiah 4:19 TNIV) What I liked about the passage is that, not only is it a good reminder that God is present with me in the dark times, but I think he feels my dark times too; and that feels good to know.
Next time things get a little low for you, or a little dark, remember that even though you may not be able to feel it, God is present, and he feels what you’re going through.
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