Lullaby

When Jonathan and Zach were very young, someone had gifted us a cassette tape with lullabies on it. Linda and I basically memorized that tape, often singing the songs to the kids at night or before naps.

One of my favorite was this:

"Even the darkness is light to Him,

And night is as bright as the day,

So you are safe though the light grows dim,

For even the darkness is light to Him."

Little did I know that the lyrics stemmed from Psalm 139, where verse 12 reads:

"Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you."

The funny thing is that this beautiful lullaby -- set in the middle of a beautiful poem of praise and wonder about God's attributes -- precedes a very dark portion of the psalm, the part where David says he has "nothing but hatred for the wicked" and invites God to slay them all.

How bizarre.

It's almost as if David were saying, "God, it would be so great if you'd just go ahead and eliminate all the opposition. C'mon, please just make it easier here. Wouldn't that be best?"

But, of course, that is not God's answer, for He is the "same Lord whose property is always to have mercy." Is it possible that God is not at all concerned with slaying the enemies, but rather wants to save them?

And is God's kindness really the ultimate point of Psalm 139? After all the wonder that David expresses --

• Wonder that God knows everything about me
• Wonder that God is everywhere I go -- if I go to heaven or if I make my bed in the depths, He is there; if I rise on wings of dawn or settle on the far side of the sea, He is there
• Wonder that my very existence and life is a mystery
• Wonder that I was fearfully and wonderfully made
• Wonder that ally my days are ordained for me, written in God's book before one of them came to be

-- it's understandable that David might want to solidify that wonder by just eliminating all that is hard and unfair and inequitable about life.

But perhaps the most amazing thing is that God's love and kindness and compassion and grace and mercy continuously reach out to all, inviting all to join Him and His kingdom.

And maybe that's why David closes his poem by inviting or even imploring God to search his heart and lead him in the "way everlasting." That "way" may well be different than my own way.