‘God is light; in Him, there is no darkness at all,’ we read in 1 John 1:5, but for many people, darkness is a very present reality. The ‘dark night of the soul’ is not something we like to talk about, but I have been reading through the book of Job recently and it’s clear that suffering, anguish, confusion, disappointment and darkness are not topics that are glossed over in the Bible, and therefore should not be glossed over by us, however much it may cause us discomfiture to uncover these.
The ‘dark night of the soul’ (a term coined by John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Spanish monk) is that sense of the absence of God which causes us confusion and pain. Is 54:7 says ‘For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with a deep compassion I will bring you back’; Song of Songs 5:1-11 speaks of the Bride’s plight when she is slow to open the door for her loved one and then cannot find him. It is a sense of abandonment and absence which causes us anguish and yearning and longing, an aching that is almost physical in its intensity. The psalmists frequently express this feeling (Ps 10:1, Ps 13:1, Ps 27:9, Ps 44:24, Ps 69:17, Ps 88:14) and Isaiah even speaks of God as One who ‘hides himself’ (Is 45:15).
Yet even in the darkness, God calls us to trust Him; we are called to live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7), and one of the most valuable lessons in life is learned when we steadfastly continue to trust God even though we feel abandoned by Him.
Charlie Cleverly, in commenting on Song of Songs 5, writes ‘While we may have a simple plan for our life – to be happy, prosperous, successful and at peace – what God wants is for us to learn to trust Him deeply against the odds.‘ (‘The Song of Songs’, P 180) So often, as Joseph found, our plans seem to be in direct conflict with God’s, and we learn, often with a jolt of shock, that God is stronger than we are and His plans will prevail over ours. We may have learnt as children to manipulate our parents and bend them to our wills; we may have learnt as adults to manipulate our spouse, colleagues, friends and family and get our own way, but we cannot manipulate and control God.
Job shows us that it is possible to still walk with God even when we suffer, even when we don’t understand. ‘It is good when we decide not to be offended with God, not to accuse him of not knowing what he is doing, not to resist going down his path for us, but instead to trust him,’ Charlie Cleverly continues. That is a choice. We would not willingly choose darkness; it takes great faith to say, as John of the Cross did, ‘glad night… more lovely than the dawn!‘, but it is a choice we can make. John 1:5 reminds us that darkness can never overcome light; Ps 112:4 assures us ‘Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.’ Even in darkness, we can choose to walk with God.
