I Believe in the Sun

During World War II, some of those hiding from the Nazis scratched words into the cellar walls where they took shelter. Someone — we don't know who — wrote this:

I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in the power of love, even when I don't feel it. I believe in God, even when he is silent.

I have read those words many times. And every time, I am stopped by them. Because whoever wrote them was not writing from a place of comfort or certainty. They were writing from a cellar. In hiding. From a world that had gone terrifyingly dark.

And still — I believe.

That is not naive faith. That is faith that has been tested to its absolute limit and has chosen, against all evidence, to hold on.

Psalm 80 knows this territory. It is a prayer written in the aftermath of catastrophe — a community defeated, humiliated, struggling to understand where God has gone. And yet they pray. They cry out. They refuse to let go of the God who seems, in this moment, to have let go of them.

The Psalm begins by calling God Shepherd — the one who leads, protects, provides. And even in their darkest hour, they cannot stop addressing him that way. That is faith. Not the absence of doubt, but the refusal to stop speaking to the One you are not sure is listening.

If you are in a season where God feels silent — you are in good company. The Psalmist was there. The people in that cellar were there. Keep speaking anyway. Keep reaching. The sun is still there, even when you cannot see it.

Prayer: O God, there are seasons when you feel very far away. When the silence is long and the darkness deep. We choose, like those who have gone before us, to believe anyway — in the sun, in love, in you. Hold us fast, even when we cannot feel your grip. Amen.

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