A Ramble About the Darkness

"God, it's so dark. I can't see. I can't hear You. I don't remember where everything is. Why has everything changed?"

"I haven't changed. I don't change. The room has always been dark as you've moved through it. I haven't gone anywhere."

"I don't understand. Why does everything seem so different, so much less certain. It feels like You're not here."

"I am always right where you are. I haven't changed."

The darkness is hard to take. It's hard to comprehend why we go through it or why we need to go through it. The feeling of being alone with no points of reference. The feeling of abandonment. And all the while we haven't been abandoned, but we can't sense Him. It's disorienting and frightening, and you can feel like you're slipping into depression or worse.

The best advice I've ever read (I think it was Watchman Nee) for going through the darkness is to do nothing; to wait and be still and to trust that God hasn't abandoned you, and that He's right where you are, wherever you are, right now. Sometimes the darkness lasts for a long time. Don't move. Just be still. The temptation is to do "something." Anything. It's to do something on your own, outside of faith. Remember that whatever is not from faith is working from the disorder. It may not be morally wrong, but it is still from the disorder. It wouldn't have been morally wrong for Jesus to have turned stones into bread to feed Himself, but it would have been Him doing "something" when He needed to be still in the darkness of His hunger and wait. He knew that. It's when we start moving around the darkness on our own without Him that we start tripping over things and running into walls and hurting ourselves because we don't know where we're going.

When you find yourself in the darkness, your first instinct will be to panic and do something to get yourself out of it. This is the wrong response and will only cause more problems. Do nothing. Wait and be still as He is still and unmoving. Don't let your fear and panic drive you to try and turn as much rock to bread as possible. The consequences will be worse than if you just let yourself go hungry. Physical needs will cause you to panic. Emotional needs will cause you to panic. This is the time when you must not panic even if every survival instinct you have is telling you to. You must do nothing and stay still.

God hasn't left. He hasn't gone anywhere. The darkness is a part of the maturing process. It's a part of reaching beyond your physical, soulish being and trusting in His presence even when you can no longer sense it or recognize it in the way you have become accustomed to.