Afraid of the Dark

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

As a child I remember being afraid of the dark and I had a tremendous fear of the cellar. My dad was stationed at Edgewood Arsenal Maryland at the time. We lived in a beautiful old home on the Gunpowder River that led into the Chesapeake Bay. The basement was dark and spooky to an 11 year old boy. I hated to hear my mom or dad tell me to go down into the cellar and get something. One day my dad saw me hesitate and just stare at the door with my hand on the door knob. He walked over and opened the door up for me and told me he would go with me. As we walked down the dark stairs there was a pull string to turn on the light but I couldn’t reach it so I always had to run into the middle of the basement to be able to reach the other light. My dad realized that I was afraid of the dark and asked me why. I told him because I thought there was something down there that would get us. He assured me that there was nothing that would ever harm me that would come out of the basement. I only believed him when I could see with all the lights on that there was nothing hiding in the darkness.

As Christians too many of us respond as I did as an eleven year old boy, afraid of what we imagine is hiding in the dark. David reminds us that in the most difficult of situations God is always shining his light on us so that we have nothing to fear. No matter what comes our way we have nothing to fear. The Lord is our stronghold in this life and nothing can break through that stronghold if we belong to Him. So today and every day we can cry out, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark