Daniel 2:22 – “Light”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²²He [is] One revealing the deep and hidden things, One knowing what [is] in the darkness and the light with Him dwells.

I personally can almost not stop praising God for the very truths Daniel notes here. He is the God who gives light, the God who explains the “why?” and the God who makes my world make sense. “He [is] One revealing the deep and hidden things.”  I’m sure everyone is different and perhaps different aspects of God’s truth mean more or less to different people, but for me, perhaps above all else, He is the God who takes away the confusion, who “turns on the lights” and in Him I find a world that makes sense.

The one thing I find almost unbearable in this world is confusion, the not understanding “why?” Why are things the way they are? Why are people the way they are? Why am I the way I am? Why does this or that happen? What can I do about this or that? My world is still to this day full of these same questions, but ever since the Lord stepped into my life, He has again and again answered my questions, explained things to me, shown me the way, made sense of what I see, and I am SO grateful to Him. I’ll join Daniel in saying, “Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever … He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him!”

Jesus promised me a long time ago, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). The Lord gave me Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto Me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things thou knowest not.” I have spent my adult life reveling in the truth that “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (I Jn 1:5). Yes, Daniel, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever!” “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise!”

In college, I got to enjoy the great blessing of studying engineering. As a young man I remember how immensely satisfying it was to sit in one class after another and actually get to understand so many reasons why the world is the way it is. I got to learn why skies are blue but sunsets turn red, why music is in octaves, why steel is ductile but iron is not, why cellophane is impossible to pull apart but tears like tissue, why stagnant water turns black, why iron rusts but aluminum doesn’t, why carbon monoxide kills people, and on and on and on and on. Words fail to express what a thrill it was (and is) to me to understand these things, to dispel the confusion, to actually have the world make sense. The same thing happened as I got to study Greek and Hebrew. I no longer had to listen to other people say, “The Greek says this,” or “In Hebrew, this means …” I could read it myself. I could have my own opinions of why this or that. Once again, perhaps everyone is different and maybe these things don’t mean much to someone else, but to me they are life and death.

Of course, as Daniel has already expressed, even those “natural” truths are wisdom that God gives, so how much more of a blessing is it when He opens our eyes to see spiritual truth? What a treasure it is to know, spiritually speaking, that it is God Himself who is behind all that “natural” truth I so enjoyed learning? In other words – to know the big “why” things are the way they are. Other people can go on theorizing how the world came into being but I know. It’s not by chance or any other reason. The world we know exists because the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ wills it to be and He is a God of perfect wisdom and love. What a treasure it is to know that “the heart of man is desperately wicked.” That explains why the world is so full of cruelty and violence. What a treasure it is to understand there is a Redeemer – that there is a solution to man’s (my) wickedness, how it is possible for love to conquer it all.

I could go on and on but I guess I’m just reveling in this wonderful little sentence from Daniel’s praise, “He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him!” In case my grandchildren or great grand children ever get to read this silly blog, I want to share that, when I was in the pits of my confusion, exasperated at life, and totally not understanding, I wrote the words,

Help me, I’m drowning in a sea of black,

There’s darkness around me and knives in my back.

I struggle for freedom, I search for the light,

But I never quite reach it, it’s lost in the night.

There was a time, so long ago, when I was young and free,

Life was good and love was warm, my days were filled with dreams.

But those dreams are now just fantasies, they’re lonely thoroughfares,

And life is just a carousel of reality’s nightmares.

“… I search for the light, but I never quite reach it, it’s lost in the night.” As I said above, I can’t stand confusion. For me, life is unbearable when I don’t understand “Why?”

I want so much to “see the light.” But thanks be to the Lord, one day I was sitting on the edge of my bed, and as I stood up, the lights came on. I don’t even know what I was thinking about before that, but as I stood up, suddenly I knew that God is real, that Jesus and the Bible and all of it is true. It is the truth! I didn’t “reach” the light, it reached me. It was no longer “lost in the night” – suddenly I felt it was shining around me like an afternoon sky, and has ever since. What I found in that moment is that He is the light! As Jesus said, “I am the light of the world!” Everything makes sense in Him.

Another time, I was flying out to DC to see my friend JR and marveling how the sun was shining above what below was a dark, rainy world, and wrote some more words. At the time they were just a silly love song, but they express what my heart feels toward the Lord:

The sun is always shining, when you fly above the clouds,

Like the way my life is beautiful, whenever you’re around.

You soothe my soul like summer rain, you make the world seem right,

You lift me up above the clouds, and drive away the night.

What more can I say? “Blessed be the name of the God forever and ever … He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him!”

Thank you, Jesus, for turning on the lights in my heart. I so wish everyone else could enjoy such blessing. May my stumbling, bungling life in some way today be used by You to turn on the lights in someone else’s heart.