Darkness is my closest friend

I call a coincident -  a God Wink  (first learned this from Rock R.).  I have been listening to Tim Keller Sermons (Get his Free Sermons Here) now for two years (in my car). Monday, "Heman's Cry of Darkness" began playing and seemed to be the whisper from God to me about my feelings last week.  The last word in Psalm 88 (in the original Hebrew translation) is translated - Darkness.  In the ERV translation the last line translates to  "Now darkness is my closest friend".  Very unusual for a Psalm to end in darkness, without any hope.

Keller flips the dark and hopeless view of this Psalm into the very opposite view - that Darkness is also the cry to God - your closest friend. God's friendship is a choice - are you just a friend for his utility, or are you his friend regardless of anything - unconditional!

https://pixabay.com/en/at-night-gloomy-clouds-pale-141458/

Keller uses Tolkien's Christian Mythology Mastery to illustrate this darkness paradox:

“ ….the place near the end of The Lord of the Rings, where Sam Gamgee is with Frodo and they’re going to the mountain and suddenly Sam realizes, “We’re going to die. No matter what happens we’re going to die.” The thought comes to him, “Well, then, just give up. Curl up in a little ball over here and go to sleep.”

Then the text says (this is in the text, not the movie), “But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam’s plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.”

When he said, “I’m going to go to the end. I’m going to do what I’m supposed to do. I don’t care the consequences, I don’t care if there’s no hope; I’m going to do it,” he felt through all his limbs a thrill as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue. It’s in the darkness you’re most able to become a great heart, a brave heart, something of greatness.”^[1]

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^[1] Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

The vast and infinite valley of darkness can be a place you can forever fall.  It takes words of encouragement, a helping hand and voice of love to light the way. That - is a friend.