All Christians experience this sooner or later—some more intensely than others, some for longer times than others. But the feeling is the same: they lose their sense of closeness to God and conclude that they no longer have faith.
And so they despair even more. Our false god is being stripped away, and we are left empty before God—with none of the familiar ideas of God that we create to prop us up. When the dark night comes upon us, we are asked simply to surrender to God and trust him anyway. The reason St. John calls this a dark night is very important: it is because you have no control over what is happening.
That is a very important piece in all of this, because people want to control. Imagine, like the Chilean miners, being all alone in a deep dark cave, miles down, with absolutely not a single ray of light—utterly pitch black. You have no idea where you are or how to get out. All you know is that you are helpless. You try to find your way, you grope, but nothing. He was searching for an answer to some spiritual stuggles. On his very first morning there, he met Mother Teresa.
I will not do that. What I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God. The point of the dark helpless place is to strip us of absolutely everything so that only surrender and trust remain. That is the daily and severe Christian calling. Listen to Mother Teresa. Apparently, she was in her dark night from until near the time of her death in , with perhaps some interludes in-between.
You know all that great things she did? She learned trust—not certainty—trust in God. And all of that poured out to the people around her.
We must be taught, for we will not willingly go there ourselves. When we learn to trust God out of our emptiness,. We see this even in our relationships with each other. You cannot have a truly growing, intimate relationship with another if one person is trying to control the other. That destroys true intimacy.
If we are trying to control God, what do you think he is going to do? Rather than leave the relationship entirely he may initiate a period of separation, a period of absence, a period of darkness—so that we can learn that in this relationship we have to surrender, we have to let go of control. One cannot have contentment in the Christian life without the darkness. Dying is the only path to resurrection, and that is the only way of knowing God.
There is no shortcut. Jesus himself is our model for this. Knowing Christ means experiencing both the power of his resurrection and participating in his sufferings, being made like him in his death.
Death and life. Both are part of the Gospel life. When your faith has no room for doubt, then you are just left with—religion, something that takes its place in your life among other things—like a job and a hobby, something soft and comfortable. Pete Enns, Ph. Peter Enns Ph. Clemens professor of biblical studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania.
Tweets at peteenns. Surely, doubt is the enemy of faith, right? Doubt is a spiritually destructive force that tears you away from God, right? There is a benefit of doubt. Doubt can do things spiritually that nothing else can do. Doubt is not a sign of weakness but a sign of growth. Some really great scripture points. I especially like the Jeremiah one, and praise Jesus for God's everlasting love and compassion. Have a great week and Valentine's Day. Hi Peabea, Amen!
I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day. Great post! Thank you so much for the wonderful reminders of God's faithfulness. Thank you so much. God bless, Liz. Hi Liz, Thank you so much for sharing that with me. Praising God for how He used this post to bless you in your time of doubt.
May you be reminded of these Truths over and over again. Thank you so much Karen for writing this blog. My initial concern was that I sometimes doubt when I pray for others. Now I realize how much I doubt God in general. I have battled with receiving His love and forgiveness and so many other things for so long, but I refuse to let another day go by.
Especially after all God has shown me. Thank you so much again and bless you! Thank you so much for sharing your heart. Post a Comment Thank you for taking the time to comment. Click on the image to order your copy today! February 03, If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. Ephesians Think about that! When you were still separated from God, before you accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior and repented from your sin, you were dead in your trespasses.
Yet God chose you before the foundations of the world to be reconciled to Him! He chose you knowing all of your ugliness, all of your besetting sins, all the sins that you would do and He died for EVERY one of them - removing your sin as far as the East is from the West. I don't know about you, but I would find it very hard to forgive someone who sinned so egregiously against me let alone love them so much that I would die for them!
But God in His perfect and Holy love, made a way for sinners to be with Him eternally, despite their sin! When you find yourself doubting your worthiness before Jesus or you doubt, like I have, whether God could even save someone like you or you wonder whether He could still love you because you have recently sinned in a big way, take heart, God already knew your sins past, present and future and loved you anyway. When you come before Him in confession as a Believer, you are not re-securing your salvation which can never be taken away from you once you have believed , but you are confessing your sin before a Holy God to keep you close to God and to help you to grow in your walk of obedience.
Remember, there is no need to doubt God, He loved you even when you were still dead in sin. But a few years ago I experienced a level of doubt that was just too big to ignore. And for a while, it sent me into a faith crisis. What do I do with this doubt in faith? And when I embraced that my doubt became something that actually helped my faith grow. Faith is often seen as the opposite of doubt. But that perspective needs to be flipped.
The opposite of faith is certainty; where there is certainty there is no room for faith. Paul Tillich puts it this way, Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. Doubt is not the enemy and not something that needs to be fought. It needs to be understood, expressed, and used.
Throw at him your grief, your anger, your doubt, your bitterness, your betrayal, your disappointment—he can absorb them all. As often as not, spiritual giants of the Bible are shown contending with God.
The Bible is full of stories of doubting people. Rather they earned their title because they had faith WITH doubt. At the same time, there are also plenty of stories where doubt led to trouble. The book of James points toward doubt—laden prayers not being answered and Jesus told his followers to pray with confidence.
I could go on, but the point is the Bible is full of people that doubted. And not just people, but the main characters.
Doubt can keep us from following God. Or it can increase our faith. What made the stories of doubt in the Bible great was that they acted in faith despite their doubt. Doubt and disbelief are two separate issues. In contrast, doubt is often portrayed as a sin within the church. Doubt is a sign of weak faith.
God is interested in our hearts, not some phony relationship. He wants to restore and redeem us. But that can only happen when we open our hearts to him. Doubt is the fire through which it passes. But when it has been tried, it will come forth as gold.
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