“Have no fear of the dark. It changes nothing.”
When I was quite small, I was afraid of the dark. My Gramma was a wise and godly woman—she understood my fears and wanted to help me.
One night, we arrived at her house and stepped into her dark kitchen. I loved my Gramma’s kitchen and knew it well, but in the darkness I couldn’t see it. Knowing I was afraid, she quickly flipped on the light switch, and light flooded the room.
Then, she said, “Okay, Barby. Look all around you. Everything is fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of, is there? Now I’m going to turn off the light …” and she did.
We stood together in the darkness for a few moments. Then she switched the light back on and said, “See? Nothing has changed. Everything is exactly the same. There’s nothing at all to fear because the darkness changed NOTHING!”
I remember my Gramma’s wisdom whenever I read David’s prayer to God: “Even darkness is not too dark for YOU; rather, night is as clear as day, (for to YOU) darkness and light are the same.” (Psalm 139:12 CJB)
Darkness possesses no power to change anything revealed in the light. As someone wisely said, “Don’t doubt in the dark what you know to be true in the light.”
To fully understand the powerlessness of darkness, however, let’s go back to “In the beginning …”
Those first three words of the first verse of the first chapter of the first book in the Bible are probably the most mysterious words ever written. What limitless expanse—what ageless eternity—what boundless power existed before those three words?
At some point before time, God began to create. By Genesis 1:2, the embryonic earth already existed—formless, chaotic, and empty. We know that God had already “created” darkness (Isaiah 45:7) for the text tells us that darkness was “upon the face of the deep” when “the Spirit of God moved over the waters’ surface.”
There was earth. There was water. There was darkness. But no air. No light. No life.
Then, with life in mind, God began preparing the world for it. First, He knew that light would be essential to sustain life on earth, so the first Creative Day dawned with the command, “Let there BE light!” And there WAS light.
C.H. Spurgeon remarked: “I must have you notice that this light came instantaneously. The Hebrew suggests this far better than our translation—it is sublimely brief. ‘Light be: light was.’”
In retrospect, it almost seems that conflict erupted the moment light appeared. For just as Jacob and Esau wrestled in the womb of Rebekah, it appears that—in that womb of the world—there was a kind of struggle between the newly created light and the existing darkness. Was each trying to gain the upper hand—the right to control the power? We are not told.
What we do see is that the Father stepped in, as it were, like a referee and rendered His decision. The contest was over. Winner takes ALL!
“God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.” (Genesis 1:4–5 ESV)
That was that. The “good” light was allowed to gather up all the properties of energy for itself—heat, healing, illumination, strength, and vitality—while darkness was left empty and void. God did not divide power between the two, nor did He make them opposing forces. Darkness was rendered powerLESS because light got it ALL.
This is an important point, for since that first day of Creation, darkness has been a powerless void. It has no color, no sound, no substance. It cannot DO anything. It is relegated to merely occupy the space where light isn’t.
Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying: “Darkness does not exist. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. You cannot measure darkness. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present.”
John 1:5 tells us: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Another way to translate “comprehend” is, “the darkness did not—or could not—overcome it.”
Darkness cannot steal energy from light, and light loses nothing in the presence of darkness. In fact, darkness cannot exist where light is present. When the smallest spark of light appears, darkness must turn tail and flee. It cannot resist or fight the power of light.
LIGHT has no rival.
Jesus said, “I am the LIGHT of the world.” (John 8:12) He also declared, “ALL POWER is given unto Me.” (Matthew 28:18) Because He is the Light, and possesses ALL power, then even he whom Scripture calls “the Prince of Darkness” is rendered a powerLESS prince. Fear NOT! He can do nothing that the KING—the True Light—does not allow.
So, why are we so afraid of the dark?
We have nothing to fear from the darkness itself—it is truly powerless. Yet, darkness does possess one “power” when used in the hand of the enemy of our soul.
We’ll talk about that next time.
(Part 1 of 2)
