For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart. – Psalm 11:2

Today's Scripture Reading (August 4, 2025): Psalm 11 & 12

There is something about the shadows that causes shivers to go down our spines. It is the basis for all the ghost stories that we tell around the campfire, and the basis of some of the most persistent problems of our childhoods. It forms the concept of the ever-present boogeyman living in our closets or under our beds, and in any other place where shadows lurk. It is the shadows that scare us; it always has been.

The fear of our childhood never truly leaves us. As we grow older, it becomes a fear of dark nights and dark alleys, because you never really know what is lurking in those shadows. A few years ago, I was working out at a local gym, and I was on the cross-trainer with two girls using the machines beside me. The two women were conversing with each other, and one of them was telling a story about an unpleasant experience she had with a guy that had surprised her from, yeah, the shadows. She is describing this guy, and finally, she looks for someone in the gym who is close to the size of her nemesis. Finally, she looks at me and then back at her girlfriend, motions in my direction, and says, "He was bigger than him." I wanted to tell her that I was not all that dangerous, but I wasn't sure that would have been all that helpful at that moment.

David pictures his enemies as being ready to attack from the shadows, their weapons were already in their hands and prepared to be fired. His problem is that there is no defense against weapons fired from the shadows, because we never really see the attack coming. Every person who gossips or accuses us from a distance is doing nothing more than shooting at us from the shadows. It was an experience that we, and David, know all too well.

But David also knows that it is not the voices in the shadows that define him; it can never be the unknown enemy firing from a distance that gives him his identity. That role belongs only to his God, just as our identity belongs only to our God.   

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 13 & 14

Originally Published on February 9, 2013