Knitted Together in the Dark

Psalm 139 has a lot of really good stuff in it about God's omnipresence (the attribute he has to be able to be everywhere, at all times), but in verses 13-16 David talks about God forming him before he was born. He uses words like "knitted me together in my mother's womb," and "when I was being made in secret," and "intricately woven in the depths of the earth." It's a beautiful passage, and it adds to my "theology of darkness" that I've been thinking about lately.

The image in my mind is such an intimate one. God the Father, in the dark, putting a little baby together. He's done this billions of times before, but each time, no matter what his will has in store for this person, he gets to spend the very first moments with this baby alone, in the quiet, in the dark, weaving and knitting in all the elements of personality, spiritual gifts that may or may not be activated one day, talents, and yes, even predispositions to certain sins. It's quiet work, it's beautiful work, and it happens in the dark. (On a side note, I'm wondering if this could be why one of my favorite things to do is to babysit a little baby that's fussy, and getting to go sit with it, in the dark, in the rocking chair, and just talk and pray for him/her. Maybe it's because that's a little glimpse of what God does with us before we're an embryo,fetus, or whatever.)

Now, here's the thing: we may not always like some of the things that are woven into us. There are plenty of things in my own life that I wish God hadn't chosen to include in his knitting. Yet, there is a tremendous sense of peace and hope that comes in knowing he selected each one for a purpose, and that he knows every single thread used and has complete control over them all. What a wonderful thing that is happening, even right now all over the world. . . in complete darkness.

Slain in the Dark

It was a council of three, called to order by the Father, and it was done in the dark. The topic of conversation was man's sin. How to deal with and make atonement for the sinful nature that all men would have as a result of the actions of the first man and woman. There was no discussion, there was no other point of view. God had to become man, live as a perfect man, and die for the sins of those he'd chosen. There was no other way it could happen, nothing else that could be done. So, there in the darkness, before the world was created (Revelation 13:8), in the mind of God the Father, his son was slain, thus opening the way for men and women of faith to find life in Christ, even before he came to earth. It happened in the dark. The decision, the settled certainty of the event that would bring more light and more hope to the world than any other in all of history, and it gives us another reason to cherish the darkness.

Chosen in the Dark

If you haven't read it yet, please take a minute and read the introduction to this series.

God chose me in the dark. Before light was created (Genesis 1:2-3), before the earth itself was created God chose me to be his son (Ephesians 1:4). There may be no better reason to love the darkness than this! It was in the dark, before there was life, before I could sin or do good works, before I had the ability to know God, he chose me, of his own accord, of his own delight. Even though he certainly knows all, he didn't peer through the darkness to see my decision and pre-empt me by picking me first. Instead, in that moment, the quiet, stillness of the dark, when it was only Him, his Son, and his Spirit, he said "yes" to Jason. Here's the thing: nothing any more significant than that could ever take place in the dark, and it is to that I cling when the darkness feels like a prison cell or like it's closing in fast to suffocate. It becomes, not an agent of constriction but one of freedom.

A "Dark Theology": Introduction

Okay, here's the thing: I'm a little nervous about posting this for a couple of reasons. One, I don't have all my ideas fully thought through, and there's nothing like putting something in print that you're not totally sure about! The second thing, is I'm a little afraid that folks will misunderstand where I'm coming from on this and will misinterpret what I'm actually talking about. That being said, here goes. . .

One of the things that can happen when you don't sleep is that you end up spending a lot of time in the dark. Over the course of the past few months, I've reflected on and thought about darkness. Darkness is used over and over again in Scripture as a symbol for sin, often times hidden sin (In John 12, Jesus talks about how he's come into the world so that we no longer have to walk in darkness. In 2 Corinthians Paul uses darkness to represent unbelievers and contrasts that to believers who are in the light. I John 1 admonishes believers not to hide their sins in the dark but to bring them into the light where God is). Figurative darkness is used in Scripture with mostly negative connotations.

But what about actual darkness? Is there a difference? Does physical darkness have about it the same secret, closed off, sinful ethos that figurative darkness does? As I've thought about it, I've come to realize that actually, a lot of really amazing and really important things concerning my Christian life and relationship with God happened in literal darkness, and so I've begun to try and reflect on some of these to make the dark that I find myself in more and more these days (and nights), and over the course of a few blogs, I'm going to be sharing and talking some about what I've discovered.