He might feel like he’s flying straight, when he is actually descending toward the ground. Our God answers. He says that we are "afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down." Pixabay. If you’re experiencing the Dark Night of the Soul, you will constantly carry around within you a sense of being lost. It was the malady that provoked David to soak his pillow with tears. However, the Dark Night of the Soul is a process initiated by the soul. The meaninglessness seemed at once compelling and untrue at the same time. However, due to God’s past dealings with me, I had learned to trust him. Just whisper to me I’m your son!”. "—Isaiah 26:9 . And they were mercifully patient, kind, and surprisingly hopeful and encouraging to me — especially my saintly wife. by John Mark Comer. If the eclipse had a corona, I couldn’t see it. After hearing the "call within a call", Teresa only heard the voice of God once more before her death. We think of the prophet Habakkuk, who in his misery remained confident that despite the setbacks he endured, God would give him feet like hind's feet, feet that would enable him to walk in high places. I sat in bed stunned, remembering my living room prayer. “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. Of course, I am not sharing this information with you to lessen your pain. In the Dark Night Remember God. Again, we can be anxious and nervous and worried without finally submitting to ultimate despair. And twenty years ago this week, light dawned in my darkness (Psalm 112:4). Persecuted, but not forsaken. I was 31, married to my dearest friend on earth, and had a precious baby boy. A dark night of the soul is not something that one can choose to initiate — or participate in. In like manner, we see that it is a good thing to go to the house of mourning, but even in mourning, that low feeling must not give way to hatred. The “dark night of the soul” is a term that goes back a long time. The God of your joy is also the God of your pain. St. John's term has now been adopted by people of all belief systems to refer to a transformational journey that takes place when you are suffering. We ask how a person of faith could experience such spiritual lows, but whatever provokes it does not take away from its reality. I suddenly saw the world as if God didn’t exist. My doubts and fears were only leading me into deeper confusion and darkness. The phrase, “dark night of the soul” is often used informally to describe an extremely difficult and painful period in one’s life, for example, after the death of a loved one; the break-up of a marriage; or the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness. And so will diligence without God. The term "dark night of the soul" is used in Roman Catholicism for a spiritual crisis in a journey towards union with God, becoming Christlike, like that described by St. John of the Cross. Our Lord Himself was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. God Went Dark. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died there – only an illusory identity. Dr. R.C. The dark night is a time of refining. Discouragement, worry, or exhaustion press in on us. The ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ occurs when your life appears to hit rock bottom. For the past twenty years, I have been feeding off the peaceful fruit resulting from the loving, fatherly discipline of the Lord. In the second dark night, the soul is enkindled with the love of God, the warmth and strength of which comes from God, though the soul assents to it. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. But having just joined the staff, this pastor knew nothing about my spiritual crisis, and I wasn’t going to try and explain it to him then. Life was mostly ministry, and mostly wonderful. O God. I worshiped. A short clip of Eckhart Tolle discussing the Impersonal Nature of Awareness in Santa Barbara for Eckhart Tolle TV. This is what I experienced as a young man in the meat market. If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. It was the malady that so afflicted Martin Luther that his melancholy threatened to destroy him. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. In like manner, we see that it is a good thing to go to the house of mourning, but even in mourning, that low feeling must not give way to hatred. But about three weeks before her birth, we came across the name “Eliana,” which means “my God answers” in Hebrew. In my dark night of the soul, I decided to fly by the instruments — to steer by the Bible’s direction until I had enough evidence to determine that it was a faulty instrument. It is important for us to make a distinction between the spiritual fruit of joy and the cultural concept of happiness. I was leading a new and rapidly growing ministry, working alongside a mentor and friend I loved and esteemed highly. A dark night of the soul is not something that one can choose to initiate — or participate in. When Eliana was six, I wrote her song that included these lines: You, Eliana, remind me each day He answered by staying imperceptibly near when I feared he was gone forever. Work appeared meaningless, rest appeared meaningless, leisure appeared meaningless, the cosmos appeared meaningless. By touchofgod77 February 24, 2017 Dark Night of the Soul, Newsletter Index Dark Night of the Soul The Dark Night of the Soul James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. During spiritual initiation or active kundalini Ascension Stages, there are four main types of the down-cycle of spiritual crisis which could be associated with what the ancients and mystics have called the Dark Night of the Soul.These phases of spiritual development are unavoidable, as the "living death" or Ego Death must occur for resurrection of the spiritual body and mind. But suffice it to say, one day that spring an eclipse of God occurred in the sky of my soul. This phenomenon describes a malady that the greatest of Christians have suffered from time to time. The child of God is already seated “in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). Until that day. The presence of faith gives no guarantee of the absence of spiritual depression; however, the dark night of the soul always gives way to the brightness of the noonday light of the presence of God. Due to his past dealings with me, I had learned to trust him. Night appears to be a time peculiarly favorable to devotion. And God’s promises had always given me more light and hope than anything I had ever known. I was born again somewhere around age 10 or 11, when I first really understood the gospel invitation. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The dark night of the soul is the time when God focuses on our "outward man" and the things that we do. Clyde’s two children and their families couldn’t provide adequate care for him either. The veils of illusion are torn from our eyes. The “dark night of the soul” is a concept that has been discussed for millennia, typically associated with a poem written by St. John of the Cross. I kept my habit of personal devotions, despite how Teflon-coated my soul seemed. So he must learn to trust what the plane’s instruments are telling him, not what his thoughts and feelings are telling him. 4:7-10). We were part of a growing, healthy, vibrant church that was reaching its local community and sending people to the far reaches of the globe with the gospel. John Paul Jackson ( Art of Hearing God ) 5 The Dark Night of the Soul. In Psalm 77 the Psalmist shows us the way to pray in a Dark Night of the Soul. My wife and I were involved with my brother and his wife in the gestational stage of what would become an inner-city, truly multicultural church plant reaching hard-to-reach and hardly-reached people. A year later, on Saturday, August 22, 1998, my daughter was born. This coexistence of faith and spiritual depression is paralleled in other biblical statements of emotive conditions. The vanity, emptiness, and striving after the wind that the preacher proclaimed I understood as never before (Ecclesiastes 1:14). My prayer inspired by this Psalm will help you navigate the darkness in your soul and by faith see the unseen light of Christ: In the Night I Remember You Help me! And I determined to do something aircraft pilots must learn to do: fly by the instruments. So I bless God for this gift of discipline. The dark night of the soul. I wanted to say, “No, absolutely not!” And I wondered why he hadn’t called another elder (I wasn’t one). We are told that it is perfectly legitimate for believers to suffer grief. Our faith is not a constant action. Dark night of the soul is spiritual disillusionment, no control over having lost God, no feeling of grace, but surrender to the darkness of being lost to God is grace sought in the search. What dies is the egoic sense of self. As I thanked God for Eliana and a safe birth and how God had answered me, I got to thinking, “It was about a year ago the Lord answered my cry. It took no time for the void of God to produce in me the void of meaning. After hearing the "call within a call", Teresa only heard the voice of God once more before her death. The reception of this love is facilitated by the fact that the soul cannot take pleasure in any earthly or heavenly delight, so that all the soul’s powers, spiritual and sensual, are devoted exclusively to the love of God. What it is: A season in our apprenticeship to Jesus where he intentionally takes away the felt sense of his presence in order to do a deep work of purgation and preparation in our soul for a greater freedom, love, and intimacy with God. I had numerous experiences that confirmed to me the New Testament reality of the work and gifts of the Holy Spirit. His life depends on it. The details are too complex to include here, and not crucial to the point. About the Dark Night. Dark Night of the Soul is an old concept. Though grief may reach to the roots of our souls, it must not result in bitterness. This was a new experience for me. When God Works Deep Inside You. Perplexed, but not in despair. The day after she was born, I was in the hospital cafeteria eating breakfast and having my devotions. Yes, I have also experienced it. Irregular updates, but we try, we have children you know You will receive a confirmation email from us within a minute, if you don't see it check the junk/spam folder and mark it as safe and follow the instructions to receive our newsletters. The bleak darkness was horrible in its truest sense. Elsewhere, the apostle Paul in writing to the Philippians gives them the admonition to be "anxious for nothing," telling them that the cure for anxiety is found on one's knees, that it is the peace of God that calms our spirit and dissipates anxiety. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life… an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The soul desires growth and expansion. So I began to fly according the instruments of God’s word and not my perceptions of the world. As a primordial process of death and rebirth, the Dark Night of the Soul is a period in life where we are stripped of everything that is false. “The Dark Night of the Soul is not merely “having a bad day” or even week. And my God answered. I determined that God, not my doubts, deserved the benefit of my doubt. The Dark Night of the Senses is the first of two distinct types of Dark Nights of the Soul according to Saint John of the Cross. At some point in the spiritual journey, we come to what St. John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul” – a season in which our experience of God feels more like absence than presence. He told me the elder who was scheduled to read the sermon text the next morning was in the ER with a sudden illness, and asked if I would be willing to step in and read. Jon Bloom serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. About 9:30 that night I received a phone call from the new worship pastor at church. The dark night of the soul doesn't come at the beginning of one's journey to God. I think having this information will make the darkness easier to navigate. Devotions for Psalm 13:1-6–Dark Night of the Soul June 12-18, 2017 . That day I was seized with a Grand Doubt, and scales, rather than falling off, filled my heart-eyes. But it wasn’t really my heart cry. During the Dark Night of the Soul you need to trust God in the dark and wait on Him.You will have to ride on sheer blind faith just hanging onto to Rock of Salvation. With enough data—life experience—coming from our upbringing, media, role models, community, and traveling, … I was disturbed at the difference I saw between my experience of satisfaction in God and what I read in the Bible. A Christian can have joy in his heart while there is still spiritual depression in his head. If you’re experiencing the Dark Night of the Soul, you will constantly carry around within you a sense of being lost. Night appears to be a time peculiarly favorable to devotion. A Prayer for the Dark Night of the Soul. Notice that the apostle Paul describes our condition in a variety of ways. Our response is a choice–choosing to believe God is who He says He is even in the darkest moments.T his is faith. The Dark Night is a metaphor describing the mystical union between the soul and God in prayer. I suddenly couldn’t see God at all. And then I prayed something very specific: “Lord, if you just somehow whisper to me that you’re still there, and I’m your son, and all this is for your good purpose, I think I can endure anything. And that’s what disturbed me: that my life could be mostly ministry, and mostly wonderful, to the point that gaining Christ Jesus my Lord through death did not feel surpassingly worthy to me (Philippians 3:8). Monday, June 12, 2017–Dark Night of the Soul “Will you forget me forever” (Psalm 13:1a). I had never heard the name before, but as soon as I saw it, I knew God wanted us to give her that name to remember his deliverance. To reach that union, however, one must travel through the darkness. Our churches are practical places, and we generally tell people the answer to any spiritual problem is more: … For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”. By Eckhart Tolle. The body often charts the way forward and the soul follows in the wake. For more than 50 years of her life, "Mother Teresa was wrapped in a dark, pitiless silence", according the soon-to-be-saint's biographer, David Scott. The third phase is the unitive way, in which a soul’s heart and will becomes united perfectly with God. In writing to the Corinthians in his second letter, Paul commends to his readers the importance of preaching and of communicating the Gospel to people. In the Ascent, John wrote of the "active" night; the Dark Night addresses the "passive" night of purification of the sense and spirit to prepare the soul for union with God. 3. The presence of faith gives no guarantee of the absence of spiritual depression; however, the dark night of the soul always gives way to the brightness of the noonday light of the presence of God. So, although God appeared absent to me, and at times I seemed a hair’s breadth away from believing it, I didn’t. We may be confused and perplexed, but that low point to which perplexity brings us does not result in complete and total despair. The dark night of the soul. His poem is what gave us the name Dark Night of the Soul. All of our resources exist to guide you toward everlasting joy in Jesus Christ. The dark night of the soul is a stage in personal development when a person undergoes a difficult and significant transition to a deeper perception of life and their place in it. Irregular updates, but we try, we have children you know You will receive a confirmation email from us within a minute, if you don't see it check the junk/spam folder and mark it as safe and follow the instructions to receive our newsletters. The details are too complex to include here, and not crucial to the point. It is for discipline that you have to endure. The term "dark night (of the soul)" in Roman Catholic spirituality describes a spiritual crisis in the journey toward union with God, like that described by St. John of the Cross. The joy that we have sustains us through these dark nights and is not quenched by spiritual depression. I threw myself on the living room floor and pleaded with God for light and deliverance. Hear my prayer. No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul by means of the dark night.” We have a hard time with the dark night. I claim in no way to perfectly value death as gain, and with Paul, I’m pressing on to greater realization (Philippians 3:12–14). So I began to fast and pray that God would do in me whatever it took so I would not turn his gifts into idols, that I would love him supremely. Traditionally, spiritual directors identify three primary stages (or ways) of growth in holiness. We confuse God with our ideas about God, or worse, our ideologies. We may lose heart completely. And it has only emboldened me all the more to pray, “Whatever it takes, Lord.” For I’ve learned repeatedly that the joy and hope he offers are worth whatever it takes to receive them. If the eclipse had a corona, I couldn’t see it. God is treating you as sons. The Dark Night of the Senses is a time when God seems distant – we don’t feel his love or blessings (e.g., Job and the Psalmist, “O Lord, why is your face hidden from me?”). I suddenly saw the world as if God … I remember the terror of realizing that if I embraced this unbelief, the wonder of my wonderful wife and child would disappear, for whatever “love” I felt toward them would be nothing more than some genetic illusion to encourage and protect reproduction. Yes, he will. In like manner, we see that it is a good thing to go to the house of mourning, but even in mourning, that low feeling must not give way to hatred. Its solemn stillness helps to free the mind from that perpetual din which the cares of the world will bring around it; and the stars looking down from heaven upon us shine as if they would attract us up to God. For more than 50 years of her life, "Mother Teresa was wrapped in a dark, pitiless silence", according the soon-to-be-saint's biographer, David Scott. He answered when I asked that he not allow me to lose my faith altogether. God intentionally withdraws the felt-sense of his presence to do a w The depression may be profound, but it is not permanent, nor is it fatal. It is God’s plan for preserving us and bringing us safely to glory. The ‘dark night of the soul’ is a term that goes back a long time. Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever taught a “dark night of the soul.” The ideas contained in “The Dark Night of the Soul” have been applied in contexts outside of Catholicism. It was the malady that provoked David to soak his pillow with tears. I believed he would only answer in ways that were best for me. Many spiritual greats have written about the Dark Night of the Soul, which is a troubling and incredibly difficult phase of spiritual awakening.. Not everyone on the spiritual path experiences this challenging period, but for those who do, it has the potential to be incredibly transformational. These are powerful images that describe the conflict that Christians must endure, but in every place that he describes this phenomenon, he describes at the same time its limits. 10 Marriage Goals Every Couple Should Have for 2021, This site is a proud member of the Salem Web Network, a subsidiary of, Copyright © 2021, Crosswalk.com. Dark Night of the Soul . The Dark Night is a long, pervasive, and very dark experience. The Dark Night of The Soul is about giving up and grieving. My Dark Night of the Soul. Dark night of the soul Subscribe to Our Newsletter! We may also think that the dark night of the soul is something completely incompatible with the fruit of the Spirit, not only that of faith but also that of joy. I was engaged in active gospel ministry from high school on. But God never leaves us or forsakes us {Hebrews 13:5}. And when the night falls and we cannot see, This passage indicates the limits of depression that we experience. I read the Scripture the next morning before the pastor preached with a heart full of trembling awe. Pain is real and shouldn’t be minimized, but emotions betray us. Regular, disciplined Bible intake is not optional for God’s people. What is the dark night of the soul? I held nothing secret from those closest to me and those who needed to know. I write this article as a memorial stone twenty years later. In fact, it must have been right around this time.” So I got out my journal and looked and was stunned again: Eliana was born on the 365th day after God answered me — on the exact corresponding Saturday a year later. For this reason he says, "that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." Sometimes He even wants to destroy your ability to believe and have faith until you know that you can believe and have faith in grace. The “dark night of the soul” is a concept that has been discussed for millennia, typically associated with a poem written by St. John of the Cross. Essentially, the “dark night” of your soul is not just a bad day, it’s a complete reboot of your entire operating system. The ultimate outcome for a dark night of the soul, is union with the Divine. Step Sheet. He will bring light, when the time’s right for you and me. I kept my hand to the vocational plow God had given me, and sought to keep providing for my wife and child. Ask him. Now that you have a better understanding of The Dark Night Of The Soul, I want to share a kind of survival guide to help you along. California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Give sunshine to the soul. And my God answered. 29.7k Likes, 182 Comments - Desiring God (@desiringgod) on Instagram: “In my dark night of the soul, I decided to fly by the instruments — to steer by the Bible’s…” In a dark night, the person of Jesus is still there, even if a lot of our ideas of God are under question. Navigating The Dark Night Of The Soul: Your Survival Guide . 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