Lately I’ve been painting to the theme of beauty in the dark. The reason is that I’ve been captivated by how God moves in darkness. Not the sort of darkness we usually feel the minute the word is spoken—there’s an evil and sinister darkness we are right to fear. But the darkness of God’s mystery, the darkness of a starry night, the darkness of the sun having gone down so we can rest and sleep and heal. There’s something far more vast about a place in the dark compared to the same place in the light. We are less in control, less angsty to get stuff done. More willing to just be. And be with each other, and be with God.
I’ve been in a season of particularly intense awareness of not knowing what God is up to in my life, but part of the season is actually being enthralled by that. You can’t see in the dark, so if you’re going anywhere you have to stick close to your guide. There is a lot of intimacy in the dark. It’s a lot more bonding to simply be with a person than to be performing tasks in their more vague presence when you think you know where you’re heading.
“I am the way,” Jesus says. Sticking close to him when we can’t see where we’re going isn’t only the wisest option, it’s the option of deepest bonding with him. I love how Van Gogh captures the spirit of the vastness of the night, so I couldn’t help painting being in a starry night with Jesus according to his theme. It’s the vastness of how alive is the journey of being with him when we can’t see the particulars of where we’re going.
