“The dark night of the soul” is not something bad or destructive. On the contrary it is an experience to be welcomed as a sick person might welcome a surgery that promises health and well-being. The purpose of the darkness is not to punish or afflict us. It is to set us free.
~ Richard J. Foster (1942- )
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble.
~ Proverbs 4:18-19
~ Proverbs 4:18-19
So many of us have been in this place (Are you still there?). A dark, lonely and wretched place. We met Him, and somehow missed the point that He not only came to save us from our sins – He came to save us from ourselves.
We might have been set free from the penalty of our sins, but somehow we missed (or have chosen not to take) the opportunity to be freed from the power of sin, right now, in this life. We held onto some little straw of disobedience, some root of bitterness…
And it almost killed (or is killing) us.
This writer lived in that place for 35 years, and by the end of it, had nothing more than a pulse. He was laying in a hospital bed, bleeding to death in all ways spiritual, mental, and physical.
And His mercies are new every morning.
Oh what a wreck he made. And all the way through it, the ever new mercies of an awesomely merciful G_d made it possible for the man to come through a dark night of the soul that lasted decades.
i knew G_d was there. i just couldn’t feel Him. i could rarely hear Him, even when i chanced to crack open the dusty Bible on my table. Everything was hard. Everything was dark. i ended up alone – really alone – in an apartment, in a neighborhood where nobody knew me. Everything was broken. The cupboards were getting bare. The only sound was from the fire alarm chirping every 90 seconds because the battery was going dead. The only taste was that of a burning clear liquid that brought some horrible unconsciousness in between hours of boredom and terror alone in that room. The only smell was that which was on the outside of me, that should have been on the inside of me…
And He will do whatever it takes to bring us into a right relationship with Himself.
Jail followed, then wretched hotel rooms, hospital, homeless shelter, homeless, then one last hotel room… until the blue van showed up to get me to an airport to get me to some family that cared and might could help – if i would be willing to be helped.
Still stumbling, still hurting, still bleeding out and dying, still waiting to get into a place where i might get the help that i really needed to get free from the sin that had fully dominated my life… He called out to me, and said the most unexpected thing:
Give up.
And i did.
i looked down at that dusty Bible on a coffee table from my bed, and said. “G_d, just do whatever you gotta do.” And i meant it.
And so He did.
He took me on down through and into some deeper darkness over the next couple days. My body was screaming for the chemicals that were no longer going into my body. Desperation was really close as i arrived on the grounds of the place where i would finally find freedom from the dreaded “I” that is in all of our existence. And at that colony of His mercy, I died. So much so, that actually, I no longer live – but Christ now Lives in and through the flesh of the one who had been in the dark night for so long.
And somehow, 35 years of darkness began to transition into an ever brighter dawn within about three weeks. i can’t explain what happened. But this i know, this One who heals did a doozy on one guy. He tore me out of my old self, alive in Him, clothed only in His righteousness – and simply bursting with Hope and running free within the very near Presence of this One Himself who had been so far away, such a short time ago.
Oh yeah, sometimes the shadows have flickered on the edge of the landscape like from trees around a clearing, but the day itself has yet to get anything other than brighter. The colors have gained a new depth and richness as His Son rises in the sky of this new man.
And while the aforementioned dusty Bible has been replaced (it was starting to get a little too fragile for the intense use it received), the same words in the new copy of His Word tell me that it will never be dark like it was again. Not ever.
“Beyond awestruckingly thankful,” falls pitifully short here, but thankful i am. And happy, and joyous and free and full and alive in Him.
Are you in a dark night, beloved reader?
Go deeper into the dark. Go to the end of yourself. HE is there. HE will bring you through to the dawn. HE promises this to be true.
And, for what it’s worth, so do i.
Contact me at [email protected] if you need to talk to anyone. We will find someone in your area to help your trip into the dawn.
Grace comes into the soul,
as the morning sun into the world;
first a dawning, then a light;
and at last the sun
in his full and excellent brightness.
~Thomas Adams (1612-1653)
