April 5
La Noche Oscura
Your statutes have been my songs
In the house of my pilgrimage.
I remember Your name in the night, O Lord,
And I keep Your law.
This has become mine,
Because I kept Your precepts. ––Psalm 119:54-56 NKJV
Nobody enjoys spiritual dry seasons––times when our spiritual life seems on hold, or when God seems silent or distant. One common phrase we use to refer to such difficult times is “the dark night of the soul,” a phrase coined by 16th century Spanish priest Saint John of the Cross. His eponymous poem articulates the pain and sorrow of what today we might call spiritual depression: a time when our faith seems flat, stagnant, or otherwise lacking.
When we hear the phrase today, it means something very different from what John of the Cross intended. In the nearly 500 years since John of the Cross’s death, the idea of “spiritual darkness” has come to mean something negative. In our modern Christian context, a dark night of the soul is something to be endured until we get to the “good stuff.” For John of the Cross, however, the dark night—or la noche oscura—was a season when God “blacks out” the world in order for us to see and experience Him in His fullness. Even in His silence––beyond emotion and into deeper faith. I like how the late RC Sproul put it:
We may 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. Once the Holy Spirit has flooded our hearts with a joy unspeakable, how can there be room in that chamber for such darkness? It is important for us to make a distinction between the spiritual fruit of joy and the cultural concept of happiness. A Christian can have joy in his heart while there is still spiritual depression in his head.*
John of the Cross understood that spiritual depression can be a path toward growth, not an impediment to it. For example, when we want to see the fullness of the night sky, we have to go somewhere very dark to see it––away from the lights. Similarly, when our ego crashes and our spiritual life suffers, we must battle through busyness and noise to reach the outskirts where distractions grow scarce and the noise begins to fade. The journey can be quite bumpy and might take a long time, but at some point it gets dark enough where we can “see.”
I used to curse the losses in my life, even the ones over which I had no control. Slowly, the Lord has changed out the lenses through which I view past failures: If that darkness had not come—as awful and ego-obliterating as it was—I would not have been able to see the fullness of His glory. Can you see His glory without going through a “dark night”? Yes. But for me, it’s the contrast between the world’s darkness and the light that is in Him that brings startling revelation, and accentuates the goodness of the Father.
If you are in the midst of your own dark night of the soul, I do not want to sound dismissive or harsh. It’s virtually impossible to feel good about suffering when you are in the midst of it. It’s normal and healthy to feel the full set of emotions that come with disappointment or a downturn. Rather, with time, when you surrender the darkness to God, He will use it to build things in you that a life without suffering simply can’t build. Reduced to the minimum: no pain, no gain.
For John of the Cross, the dark night of the soul was a natural process in one’s spiritual life. It was a time of spiritual distance––of experiencing God’s silence and understanding that true faith is not based in emotion, but in our surrender to God regardless of emotion.
If you are going through a dark night of the soul, see it for what it is: An opportunity to surrender more of yourself to Him and to allow Him to meet you amidst the pain. Sometimes we find God inside the darkness––where His light can shine even more brightly.
Lord, thank You that even in times of deep darkness, You are there. Be with me through the dark night of the soul, and help me to see You and embrace You right where I am.