Sweeter

Today Sarah is sharing a devotion from her new book, God in the Dark. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. In this book you’ll find light in the dark, hope in despair, and the comfort only God can provide. I know you’ll be blessed by her words today. There's also a cool giveaway you won't want to miss at www.GodintheDark.com. 

Day 18

Sweeter

Psalm 119:97-104

Mem.

O how I love Your law!

It is my meditation all the day.

Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies,

For they are ever mine.

I have more insight than all my teachers,

For Your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged,

Because I have observed Your precepts.

I have restrained my feet from every evil way,

That I may keep Your word.

I have not turned aside from Your ordinances,

For You Yourself have taught me.

How sweet are Your words to my taste!

Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

From Your precepts I get understanding;

Therefore I hate every false way.

Answers. Understanding. Insight. How we long for those! We want so desperately to know what is happening to us and what will become of us. When the days are dark and we feel overwhelmed by pain or sorrow or confusion, we beg for answers. We believe that if we could simply understand, then we would find peace. That relief would come in the same package as the answers to our questions. 

The psalmist found insight. He found understanding and answers. And he calls them “sweet.” But there’s a difference between what the psalmist found and what most of us search for. Most of the time we’re scouring the temporal, hoping to find the answers to our present pains. Our perspective is short-term. Our search is for a solution to our circumstances. 

The psalmist is talking about a different search.

He describes the joy that comes from knowing the Father and the Father’s ways. The words of the Father are sweet to him, full of insight and understanding. He delights not in knowing information about his circumstances, but in knowing the Father himself.

Today may be a hard day for you. Your circumstances may be out of control. Pain, fear, confusion, or sorrow may dominate your perspective. Stop for just a moment. Breathe deeply. Quiet your mind and listen. What, above all things, does your heart desire? In the depths of your soul, the Spirit calls to you. He speaks the words you already know to be true. What you want most, above and beyond all things, is the Father. You long to be with Him—for His embrace to envelope you. More than anything you want to look into His tender eyes and know He is with you, right now. 

Answers are good, but they are temporary. Our circumstances change and so do our questions. But the Father is always. Unchanging. Knowing Him is life. Knowing Him is peace. The things this life offer us do not compare with the life we have in the Father. 

In all things dark and difficult, search for Him. Sweeter than the relief of the moment are our Father’s everlasting words. Rest in his arms and trust him with the circumstances of your life. 

His eyes are on you. 

Sarah

TWEETABLES

Only God can provide the sweet answers we need when life gets dark - @SarahVanDiest on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

When days are dark, we long for answers - thoughts from @SarahVanDiest on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

God in the Dark

by Sarah Van Diest

Life’s painful trials can bring shame about our inadequate and broken faith. There is relief in hearing the expressions of desperation in the psalmist’s voice. He didn’t experience this life perfected, and we don’t either. But the psalmist was loved. So are we.

God was so kind to give us the Psalms.

To walk through darkened days is part of the human experience. To walk through them with faith, comfort, strength, joy, and hope is part of the divine experience. Our eyes, though, are often clouded to those blessings by the thing oppressing us. When we remember and recognize our Father’s faithfulness, when we see reality with the eyes of understanding, the darkness ebbs and the light of hope grows. The impossible, unbearable, and unthinkable becomes the hidden passageway to truth, hope, and joy in Christ.

Educated as a teacher, Sarah taught school for nearly 20 years. As a young woman, she lived in China amid the rice paddies and water buffalo near Changsha, and then later taught English in Costa Rica for four years and raised her two sons.

Sarah is married for the second time, the mother of 2 boys and the step-mother to 3 more. She and her husband, David, work together in their agency The Van Diest Literary Agency. Her full name is Sarah Ruth Gerke Van Diest. She’s 5’5” and cuts her hair when stress overtakes her.

She is a freelance editor (including a New York Times and USA Today bestseller), blogger (The Write Conversation) and writer for hire. Her first book releases with NavPress in 2018.

http://christianliteraryagency.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sarah.gerkevandiest

https://twitter.com/SarahVanDiest