Blank

  We have lots of sunshine and trees outside our 3rd-story windows.  I can't imagine being closed in by walls.  Even a day of fog can bring the claustrophobia out.

Do you see how those empty notes end up making a window with nothing beyond?  Was there a time when you had so many ambitions that you were making notes to yourself everywhere, but now have been emptied of any desire?

I have been there and done that.  It is a place not necessarily dark or difficult, just an empty of purpose and joy.  Depression does that to you, and so do many other life challenges:  grief, debilitating illness, crushing debt, and the pains of relationships gone wrong, among others.  Some of us end up losing months or years of life to the unending emptiness.

That needn't continue.  The Psalmist writers were no strangers to these feelings.  When I find myself sinking, I seek their wisdom, the experience of ages, especially from David in Psalm 18:

  You, Lord, keep my lamp burning;  my God turns my darkness into light.  (verse 28)

But who is so privileged to see such intervention, you ask?  Why him and not others? He tells us in the earlier verses:

  For I have kept the ways of the Lord;  I am not guilty of turning from my God. (verse 21) and  To the faithful, you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious, you show yourself shrewd. (verses 25,26) 

Turning away from light leaves us in darkness.  It is no wonder we suffer then.  Realizing WHO we need breaks the past and becomes the greatest step forward.  However, once we seek His face we need to remain faithful. This is not the pick-and-choose mentality of our day, good for now, changeable for later.  Holding fast, clinging with all our strength is more the meaning of faithfulness here.

When we need God's intervention, as Psalm 145:18 states:

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 

He is not fooled by the lukewarm attempts to look in his direction that many offer, even if we call ourselves believers. Let's follow Him in spirit and truth, faithful to His word and walking blamelessly in this world.  By our lives, we show the truth of our faith!

  David was the Lord's anointed, true, but He held onto God and His law where others did not.  Only later did he fail in that steadfastness, and it destroyed his family.  So, if we know Him, let's follow the Psalmist's good, earlier example of faithfulness.  When the emptiness comes, our lives will not be blank but full of HIS presence in the midst of whatever life brings.  And THAT is fullness!

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