p. 31 | LIGHT IN DARKNESS by Horatius Bonar

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 22, 1880

LIGHT IN DARKNESS.

By Horatius Bonar

It was out of the cloud that the deluge came, yet it is upon that the bow is set! The cloud is a thing of darkness, yet God chooses it for the place where he bends the arch of light! Such is the way of our God. He knows that we need the cloud, and that a bright sky without a speck or shadow would not suit us in our passage to the kingdom. Therefore he draws the cloud above us, not once in a lifetime, but many times. But lest the gloom should appall us, he braids the cloud with sunshine, nay, makes it the object which gleams to our eye with the very fairest hues of heaven.

Yes, it is not merely light after the darkness has fled away. That we shall one day know—how fully! But it is light in darkness; light beaming out of a ray produced by that darkness! Water from the rock; wells from the sand; light from the very cloud that darkens; life in the very midst of death! This is the marvel, this is the joy. Peace in trouble, gladness in sorrow; nay, peace and gladness produced by the very tribulation itself; peace and gladness which nothing but that tribulation could have produced! Such is the deep love of God; and such is the way in which he makes all things work together for good to us.—Horatius Bonar.