In the Darkness, Jesus is My Light
It’s the middle of the night and I’m awake again. I turn over, listening for anything that may have awoken me. We have four kids and a dog in our house. Someone is always awake. But this time it’s just me. I’m alone in the darkness and no matter what I do in the approaching hours, sleep won’t come easy.
The warm glow of my phone is only a slight comfort. Scrolling through tweets only gets me so far as the minutes inch towards dawn. I can feel the anxiety grow. Memories flood—things I haven’t thought about for ages. Failures pop up to remind me they’re still lurking in my life’s background. Sins race toward me leashed to the Accuser telling me I’m worthless.
The worst part is it’s all true. Nothing coming to light in the dark is made up. All my sins and failures, all my shortcomings and missteps, all my iniquities and transgressions are as real as the bed I’m lying in. I am what they say I am.
I’m a wretch.
The Chief of Sinners
In such moments, I deeply resonate with the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 1:15 where he called himself the “chief of sinners.” But though these biblical words cling to me, I can’t seem to remember the words that came just before, “Christ came into the world to save sinners.”
Charles Spurgeon notes there are no adjectives between the words “save” and “sinners.” Paul does not say “rehabilitated sinners” nor “grieving sinners” nor “alarmed sinners.” He simply says “sinners.” Why does he do so? Because the word “sinners” is big enough for us all. We each find a place firmly inside that word, trapped beneath its weight, held captive to its enslaving nature.
That’s how I feel during those lonely nights awake in my bed. I feel the weight of the sinner I am. I feel as if I am the chief of sinners. But that confession is not my salvation. In the dark night of my soul, it is despair. How could anyone forgive me for what I’ve done? I don’t have peace because I don’t deserve peace. Unlike Christ on the cross, my suffering is earned. The condemnation I place upon myself is my due reward.
I am the chief of sinners. All I have to do is look at the evidence laid out.
The Coming Christ
But lest the God who loved me on the cross fail me now, he reminds me his past love is also present. “Christ came into the world.” He did not ask me to come to heaven. He came into the world. That makes all the difference. In my deepest despair, he’s not asking me to find my way to him; he’s coming to me.
“Christ did not ask me to come to heaven. He came into the world”
The desperateness of man’s heart makes way for the coming of Jesus Christ. In the depths of the night, the light of Christ beckons the sinner. As my wretchedness stands trial against me, my Defender draws near to the table. He takes his place at my right side and fights for me. In the moments I can’t see a positive way forward, my Savior requires nothing from me to win the battle. God will fight for me; I have only to be silent (Ex. 14:14). As my Accuser rages, my Savior silences.
To Save
But who can deny the evidence? Who can tell the wretch his sins are not as big as they seem? They are, in fact, much bigger than the sinner can fathom. The smallest is enough for eternal Hell. Stacked one on top of the other, the mound declares deserved death. But there are words coming from the Savior that my mind did not think, and my heart did not create. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).
“Right now, alone in the darkness, exposed and anxious, I have a Friend with me.”
Right now, alone in the darkness, exposed and anxious, I have a Friend with me. The one who upholds the universe by the word of his power (Heb. 1:3) comes down to me in my moment of need. No, even he could not deny the evidence. After all, it was against him I sinned. He not only saw the evil, he felt it deep within. It was rebellion against him. It was his word that I transgressed. It was his way I rejected. My Accuser speaks as an outsider, but the Insider knows it all.
And yet there is no condemnation. Not for me, for I am in him. Right now, I am innocent, not because I have not done such terrible things but because Jesus took my place and bore my punishment. My sins are many, but his mercy is more.
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15).
Peace I Leave with You
Eventually, sleep descends again. I’ve wrestled with God, and he hasn’t left me until he’s blessed me. My heart so troubled before finds rest in the one who died for me. My bed becomes a sanctuary. The darkness becomes light. This wretch is a saint.
What has happened in this long, winding journey of the soul? The gospel has been applied. Jesus has become to me, again, my salvation. I experienced what another saint long ago felt. John Bunyan put it plainly in his autobiographical book Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. “Sinner, thou thinkest that because of thy sins and infirmities I cannot save thy soul, but behold my Son is by me, and upon him I look, and not on thee, and will deal with thee according as I am pleased with him” (John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, vol. 1, [Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2006], 39.)
Christ becomes precious to me again because I am precious to him. His peace is mine. I am not forsaken nor forgotten. I am eternally remembered by the One who died for me, my shield and my portion as long as life endures.
In the darkness, Jesus is my light.
David McLemore is an elder at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He also works for a large healthcare corporation where he manages an application development department. He is married to Sarah, and they have four children. Read more of David’s writing on his blog, Things of the Sort.