You light a lamp for me. The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness. -Psalm 18:28 NLT

At some point we all inevitably face a dark cloud in our lives that threatens to take us down and take us out. This cloud could be an illness or a loss of some kind, but no matter what it is, it wants to trip us up and make us lose faith that God is for us and with us. It wants us to believe that He is not there, doesn’t hear, or won’t help. It lies.

When the troubles come, we can feel like they can overtake us. I know from experience that it can feel like the pain is more than we can bear and it will swallow us up whole. But when we turn to God, lock eyes with Him, give Him our complete focus, and meditate on who He is and what He is capable of doing, the light of Him makes everything else dim. Do the problems instantly go away? Unfortunately, no, but what it will do is bring a light in the darkness. For me, I was no longer sitting in the pain surrounding me. I had a lamp at my feet, I could see the light shining by simply being in His presence. The God of all, who loves us so dearly, can bring a smile through the tears. There still may be some uncertainty in the situation, but through that light we can see that we aren’t alone. He will stick with us through it all, and even if things got worse before they get better, He will still be there.

The Word gives us blessed assurance that despite the pain, we have Him. We can know that His plan for our lives will be accomplished, even when we don’t understand it. And He lovingly holds us secure. So today, let’s try to lift our eyes from the pain and see Him; truly see who He is and how much He loves us. Let’s let Him turn on the lamp for us and light up our path so we can see that no matter what we are facing, He is there and He isn’t going anywhere.