May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you. – Psalm 33:22

Today's Scripture Reading (July 3, 2022): Psalm 33

In her best-selling book “Twilight,” Stephanie Meyer writes, “I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars.” I live in an area with great seasonal differences between the length of day and night. Around Christmas, the sun doesn’t get too high in the sky, and the nights are long. In fact, unless you have a window in your office that points the right direction (I don’t), you might not see the sun. You drive to work and come home in the dark, with the sun well below the horizon. But during the summer, the opposite is true. I remember a camping trip when I was a kid when we stayed up most of the night telling stories around the campfire. On that night, when the glow in the west finally disappeared, it was replaced with a light in the east as the sun started its trip back to the horizon to rise once more.

I like both times of the year. I love it when the sun stays up in the sky well into the evening, but I also love the darkness of Christmas time when the stars come out before supper and stay in the sky into the mid-morning hours. But regardless of how long the night reigns, I know that the sun will return, and it will reign in the sky, at least for a little while. But when it is absent, I get to look at the stars, which are just distant suns, and dream of all the secrets that they might hold. And amid all of the possibilities of the stars, hope reigns.

We need hope to live, but we don’t need false hope. We need something worthy of producing hope. I can hope in the coming day, even in the middle of the winter, because I know that the sun will rise, if only for a few hours. But the night also reminds us that there are times when the darkness must reign as well. Light will come, it always does, but first, we have to survive the night.

David is in the midst of some darkness, yet he has hope that God’s unfailing love is with him. It is not a hope that is based on his performance. Instead, David’s hope is based on the nature of the God he serves. Like the sun that rises every morning or the stars that reign in the dark, David understands that God’s love is always with him, even when he can’t see him. David understands that the size of his army doesn’t save a king, a warrior can’t depend on just his strength, and even a swift horse will not always be able to deliver you from your trials, but God is always there. And in him, we can place his hope.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 35