Sunday, February 21, 2016

Dark Night of the Soul

The time may come when you must undergo your own dark night of the soul, when you must shadowbox your own demons and pray for the sweet relief of silence. If that time must come—and for all who would know Him for your own selves as He truly is and can manifest Himself in your life in all His fullness, it must come—I pray for you the tsunami of grace and Presence that are His heart gifts to His own floundering, suffering, bleeding lamb-child.

May you feel His tender care over you, the evidence of His fantastic Love overcome you in the darkness and life-save you in the slime pit. May you experience the same fantastic degree of kindness and forgiveness that were my own silken-wrapped presents. And may the full knowledge of your unworthiness cement the fact of your capacity for unspeakable evil apart from His glorious salvation. Then He can take those wretched pieces of you and restructure the foundation of your belief system, so you can truly believe and begin to live the Abundant Life you always knew was possible for others but not for you, as you victoriously limp now as His very own Beloved, the entirely new species He created in His Son, the only One in whom He is well-pleased, and in whom we abide and have our being and so are safe and Home.

This may sound like so much cotton candy, poetic license, and twaddle while you bear the bruises and sores from tethers of your own construction, but do this:  Stay in the battle. Be still and know that He is God. This is so not about you. Jesus is the hero. He is the protagonist, the main character in what you always thought was your story. Marinate in that. Let its truth flow into your deepest, lowest cracks. As it flows, as it pools, its holy acid strips the corrosion of lies and unbelief and replaces them with a coating of His own holy armor, cast and forged for you by His own precious blood, utter holiness, and furious Love.

This dark night will not be for nothing. It will be for your everything-from-now-on. Tozer said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply". Let this painful experience have its way in His faithful, tender, good hands. The most influential people in my life have been those who have encountered suffering as a constant companion, an unwelcome guest in what seemed an otherwise a decent existence. The light shines brightest in the darkness and all that. It's true. I pray you own this for your own self and the exquisite, priceless bounty that will be its legacy to you.

Godspeed, beloved...

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