Basking In the Light

“In your light we see light,” says the psalmist (9). In other words, we can only truly see the world, and ourselves, when we see them through him. As Artur Weiser wisely puts it, “Just as everything subsists on the sun’s life and heat, and just as the flower opens and blossoms in response to the sunbeams, so it is the ‘light’ of God, the heavenly light of the glory of his presence, which causes the life of man to grow and prosper joyously, and which gives it its meaning and transparency, its strength and stability” (Artur Weiser, The Psalms).

Without God there is no meaning or stability, and that is where the psalmist starts as he describes “the sinfulness of the wicked” (1) who are so full of self-flattery that they do not know themselves (2). Such people, says John, are in the darkness and walk around in the darkness; they do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them (1 John 2:11).

Actually it’s those who lack love who are like this, according to John. And love is a key theme in this psalm–see vs. 5, 7 and 10. It’s on the basis of God’s love for us that we can see his light and enjoy the feast, the “river of delights,” which he spills in our direction (8). His love is his hesed, his covenant love, or his “unfailing love” as the TNIV translates it in v. 7. It’s a word which combines feeling with commitment. His love will never lack passion, nor fail in action. We might fail to grasp it–we might join ourselves with the wicked–but as far as God is concerned, his love could not have greater dimensions (5,6).

Make some commitments before God about how you will better “walk in the light” with him.