He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
The language here is loaded with metaphor; but the meaning of it as a description of terrible heartache, misery, suffering and anguish of spirit come through clearly enough.  In our sin-cursed world suffering is as certain as death and taxes.  "It is a raw, rugged reality.  We cannot fully explain it.  We cannot evade it.  There is always an element of mystery about it.  But we can know God in such a way as to be released from it and to rise above it, and also to recognize the disciplinary value of it."[18]