The Dark Nights of the Soul

[Arial]

Exodus 2:23-25 ESV During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel---and God knew.

We all have dark nights of the soul when circumstances, suffering, grief, even the condition of a world in crisis or just a lull in our progress in faith. I suppose it is common to many if not most Christians that we view growth in maturity, growth in our faith as something that is always moving forward and we are shocked to find those flat places where we are experiencing doubt and confusion. We think we fully trust in God and then we find ourselves in the midst of one type of suffering, or tragedy or another. It can be anything. Loneliness, abandonment, betrayal by a friend or loved one; a sense of knowing nothing, being useless, unloved, of accomplishing nothing for His kingdom, unused by God with no purpose; it can be a death, an illness, a tragedy. 

No matter what the cause is we experience a crisis of faith. It is the very time when we need to cling to God and look to Him only for our help, and the very time when it is the most difficult to do that. 

Scriptures that once were a comfort to us and gave us strength now sound like mere platitudes, especially if given by well meaning friends. We may even shake our fist at God, our prayers reach upward to a heaven made of brass, and begin to say "Why bother. He does not hear me or He does not care. Is He even really there?" We may turn upon ourselves searching for the sin that has closed His ears to us, thinking our calamity is because we are not righteous enough, after all "He hears the prayers of the righteous, but not those of the wicked." Forgetting that there is no one and never will be anyone who is righteous enough to earn the blessing or audience with God. We come before Him in Christ's righteousness, for His glory, not our own.

In the opening scripture there are three words I will focus on and will get to in a moment.

First I want us to recognize something in that scripture. There are two perspectives. One is the horizontal, meaning it is what the people knew and were experiencing. They were suffering greatly in bondage and not only that, but had been for a long time. That is their perspective. They do not see, cannot see, and we never can see except in hindsight the other perspective. What is going on in the heavens with God in whatever our situation is.

And here are the three words. God heard, God saw, God knew.  We might tend to continue looking at that passage from the horizontal view because it is written from that view. But if we want to get the full impact we must not. Why? We already know that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign over all. As such He did not just happen to be passing by so to speak and heard this cry and then remembered something in an "Oh yeah, I got distracted for a while but now I remember and turned to look and see." God always hears, He always sees, He always knows.

What was it that God remembered? His covenant! And herein is our security, our hope, our help. He always keeps His covenants. This is not the place to go into covenant details, but the covenant with Abraham was two fold---possession of the land and the covenant of eternal life through faith to all nations, not just Israel. These two covenants worked in an integrated way all the way through the OT. I say this to shut down that place in our hearts that is already in a crisis of faith that might be inclined to say, "That was the covenant with Israel. What has it to do with me?"

A covenant that God makes is a covenant. And all those in Christ through faith are in a covenant relationship with the Almighty God. He always hears, sees, and knows what His covenant people are going through down to the very deepest thoughts and feelings they experience. He also knows exactly what they need, more than they know it themselves. And this is always what He will give. Hang on tight and platitude sounding or not remember Isa 40:31 But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Psalm 27:14 Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!

Those are not commands, they are promises to covenant people. God is not absent from whatever we are going through. He sees, He hears our cries, He knows---not just as in a knowledge of us, but knows us a loving covenant Father. And wait means wait, it does not mean that your rescue is now but that He is doing a work in/with you. And you may be rescued out of the suffering or you may be rescued through it, but you will be rescued. Don't shut down the feelings, we need them, or we wouldn't have them. Just don't let them turn to bitterness and hate.

We are refined through the fire, but refined we shall be. And the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

Some of our greatest growth in faith come out of the deepest of valleys of sorrow and despair, when we have no help from men and learn that God is our help. Wait. It will be said with rejoicing by the daughters of Israel, "Who is this coming up out of the desert leaning on her lover?" From Song of Solomon.

 

 

[Sower]

1 hour ago, Arial said:

Psalm 27:14 Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!

     To be succinct, my trust, in (His) timing and faithfulness...

                 If I could just remember, to  Trust the Lord!

[Arial]

14 minutes ago, Sower said:

     To be succinct, my trust, in (His) timing and faithfulness...

                 If I could just remember, to  Trust the Lord!

Yes it is a hard thing to remember and to do. We are bombarded with other things to trust in constantly. We have to relearn it over and over, and m hope is that one day, it will be fully learned. And it will. I prefer it to be while I am in the land of the living but truly, after I have been through one of these dark nights I truly have rejoiced at the privilege of being led through it. That is why Jesus did even that part for us. He was utterly faithful in His trust even as He felt the anguish in hours before He was to go to the cross and suffer beyond our imagination. That was part of His perfect righteousness that is imputed to us. It is ok if we have days where we can only cry our "Lord I believe. Help my unbelief!" Or days when all the worship or prayer we are able to offer is "God I only breathe because you give me breath." We may feel like we have let go of Him, even feel like He let go of us. But He says, "I will never leave you or forsake you," and so He won't. Psalm 121

 

 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help!

² My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not permit thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

⁴ Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

⁶ The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; He shall preserve thy soul.

⁸ The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

There is no shadow of turning with Him.

 

[Arial]

Though in suffering and trials God rescues us either out of them or through them, when it comes to a crisis of faith; when we feel we have no faith or little faith, even begin to doubt our salvation; when we are broken down and weighed down and exhausted with no will to seek Him at all, spent; He has given us the promise that He will renew our strength, and He will again strengthen our hearts. So we wait. He will do it at the perfect time and in the perfect way. Wait upon Him. He is not sleeping, He is doing. He will not be late. Wait.

Whether we feel it or not, whether we know it or not, He is causing us to lie down in green pastures, leading us beside still waters, and restoring our soul. And when He has perfected this in us (regardless of how we feel) He will again lead us out in paths of righteousness---for His namesake! And when the waiting is over, we will rejoice like little lambs. We will know Him better, love Him more, even thank Him for that time of waiting., for without it we would not know what we now know, we would not trust what we now trust, would not have what we now have, would not see what we now see. Wait.

[Neighbor]

I just do not identify myself as having such experiences.

Perhaps it is because I was an adult atheist, one used to dealing with turmoil on a daily basis, when God called me through having me read the book of Job.

While I wouldn't wish my own personal testimony of being turned about upon anyone else, I also find I do not have experiences of whatever dark nights of the soul  might be. Each day is what it is, all foreknown to God, all predestined by God to be used for good within all those that believe in the faith of  Jesus as Lord God and personal savior.

In general: Live on the manna of this day and do not worry about the 'morow. It will come,- if granted by God, and so will the manna for it's day too.

[Sower]

On 5/21/2023 at 1:40 PM, Arial said:

And when the waiting is over, we will rejoice like little lambs. We will know Him better, love Him more, even thank Him for that time of waiting., for without it we would not know what we now know, we would not trust what we now trust, would not have what we now have, would not see what we now see. Wait.

       "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord."
                                                                  Psalm 27:14      

 It works.....     Think eternal.....

Thanks Arial 

 

[Alive]

47 minutes ago, Sower said:

       "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord."
                                                                  Psalm 27:14      

 It works.....     Think eternal.....

Thanks Arial 

 

My favorite psalm!

[Michael37]

On 5/22/2023 at 4:56 AM, Arial said:

We all have dark nights of the soul when circumstances, suffering, grief, even the condition of a world in crisis or just a lull in our progress in faith. I suppose it is common to many if not most Christians that we view growth in maturity, growth in our faith as something that is always moving forward and we are shocked to find those flat places where we are experiencing doubt and confusion. We think we fully trust in God and then we find ourselves in the midst of one type of suffering, or tragedy or another. It can be anything. Loneliness, abandonment, betrayal by a friend or loved one; a sense of knowing nothing, being useless, unloved, of accomplishing nothing for His kingdom, unused by God with no purpose; it can be a death, an illness, a tragedy.

There is quite a body of work on the subject.

The Dark Night of the Soul (La noche oscura del alma) is a phase of passive purification of the spirit in the mystical development, as described by the 16th-century Spanish mystic and poet St. John of the Cross in his treatise Dark Night (Noche Oscura), a commentary on his poem with the same name. It follows after the second phase, the illumination in which God's presence is felt, but this presence is not yet stable. The author himself did not give any title to his poem, which together with this commentary and the Ascent of Mount Carmel (Subida del Monte Carmelo) forms a treatise on the active and passive purification of the senses and the spirit, leading to mystical union.^[1] In modern times, the phrase "dark night of the soul" has taken on the broader meaning of spiritual dryness and existential doubt and loneliness. Dark Night of the Soul - Wikipedia

Some folk get into a bad way. Observing and listening to someone awfulising and catastrophising about the darkness they are experiencing is occasion to help them renew their minds, as, far from being some mystical purification of the soul, their condition may actually be the consequence of fleshly attitudes, bad habits, or wrong beliefs.  

Num 13:31-33  But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.  (32)  And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.  (33)  And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

[Who me]

On 5/21/2023 at 5:56 PM, Arial said:

we are experiencing doubt and confusion. We think we fully trust in God

The response to having doubts or questions about ones faith or about trusting in God is the same.

We are not little children with a simple faith, we know there are difficult question, difficult situations and we as scripture says, 'have to be ready to give a REASON for our faith', note we don't parrot silly statements about 'just believe' we show why it is reasonable to believe and in contrast that it is unreasonable not to believe.

 

Non of us are genius's capable of coming up with new questions or doubts. Far clever people than us have experienced these doubts and questions and have answers for them.

It is our task to read them and know them.

 

That takes effort, interestingly Paul uses the illustration of the trained professional soldier and/ athlete.

 

We are to be making that sort of effort which when the challenge of trusting God comes:-

 

When life kicks one in the teeth, when you literally do not know which way to turn you have the instinct, you have the habit, you are used to turning to God and one turns to him for help.

 

Talk to any x military, they'll tell you training is hard, but when in action it is the training they follow.

 

 

 

 

 

[Arial]

The struggles with what Luther called the dark night of the soul, even wrote a book on the subject, is related to the times of struggle of the Christian, regardless of the expressions origins or its meanings in that origin.

And faith in the context of the OP does not refer to becoming a believer. Given the forum it is assumed that the majority already have that saving faith. Otherwise there would be no dark nights of the soul.

It refers to those times when we are shaken by circumstances we cannot understand. Scripture says we grow in faith. Faith to faith. Faith meaning trust in God to be who He says He is and to do what He says He will do. This is something we have to learn, to grow in, and as with all human learning we have setbacks, struggles, times of complacence and disinterest, times when we think we will never get it.

In our journey towards the end goal we learn these things that grow our faith from scriptures and working of the Holy Spirit in us through them. And we do not learn things by simply knowing the words of scripture or applying them as mantras. We learn what they are, what God tells us about them, but we do not learn it until it has been put to the test in our lives.

How do we learn what it means that grace is sufficient for us, that in our weakness we are made strong unless we experience the weakness? How do we learn to hide in the cleft of the rock unless we have need of being hidden there? How do we learn what that even means or how to do it unless we are shown just how poor and needy we are? These things grow our faith/trust in God, and tend to break one of our greatest enemies from bombarding us from within and spilling forth to those around us. Pride. That thing in us that takes credit for all we have while at the same time thanking God for it.

How do we learn in our deepest places that our strength is not our own but is God; how do we lean to simply sit quietly beneath the shadow of His wings while the storms rage around us, and all His waters have come over us unless we come to those places where we know if He does not help then there will be no help? And wait. And trust. We learn of it ("I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear") through His word, but we learn it when we walk through it ("but now I have seen you.")

We are not born into the kingdom fully mature. We are born into it as babes in Christ. We grow in maturity and no one ever reaches fullblown maturity until when?  When we arrive at this journeys destination. "For now I see through a glass darkly, but then face to face." And then ironically we will filled with the joy and gratitude and humility of little children, unable to take our eyes, not even our hearts, off the glory we behold.

Father let not the foot of pride come against us and may we seek your grace for this and for your glory. It is Jesus who is the author of our faith and it is He who will complete this good work in us that He has begun. In this we trust when the well seems dry and the flood waters have come over us.