Dark Night of the Soul

 Dark Night of the Soul

Romans 5:1-5

1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Recently I was with a group of men discussing how to handle emotions in a biblical manner. The question on the floor was, “What was an experience in your life that caused the most intense emotions? How did you feel? How did it affect you?” 

This reminded me of a phrase I learned from my charismatic catholic friends when I was first saved; “The Dark Night of the Soul”. My friends were into some catholic mysticism such as the writings of St. John of the Cross and Padre Peo. I haven’t followed this thinking in recent years, but this phrase struck me a appropriate to this discussion. It is in periods when we are going through a dark night of the soul that we find out not only what we are made of, but more importantly, we find out what God is made of!

In my case, this period in my life was in the early 1970’s. I had just gotten saved and filled with the Spirit. I had married my childhood sweetheart and was pursuing my dream of being a physics professor. Everything seem to be right on track, when suddenly, everything changed. Within a couple of years, my wife had a nervous breakdown and left me. I failed an oral PhD qualifying exam and then my father passed away. It was indeed a dark night of the soul.

My emotions at that time ran the gamut. I was sad, depressed, angry, anxious and generally an emotional mess. In my early 20’s, I was totally incapable of coping with this, but fortunately, I had made friends with some Christian brothers who were able to support me and encourage me. They got me involved in a band that played Christian music and through them I met a pastor who was able to help me. He got me involved in worship music again and got me started in serious Bible study. In fact, it was through the bass player in our band and this church that I met my current wife.  God basically tore my life down to the foundations and rebuilt it according to His biblical pattern for a Christian man.

Romans 5 teaches us that tribulation results in perseverance, proven character and hope. This was certainly true in my life. By having to totally depend on the Lord in my time of greatest need, I learned to trust Him totally and had a new hope for the future. Paul says that this is a hope that does not disappoint and shows us the reality of how the Holy Spirit works in our life and teaches us to know the love of God.

So how does all this relate to emotions? I have no idea! I am still not an expert on handling and interpreting emotions, but this one thing I have learned. Negative emotions can signal that something is wrong and you need to change something to avoid danger. The best thing to do in this case is to call upon the Lord who is able to save and deliver in any situation. So a dark night of the soul can be of great benefit if you use it to draw near to God and learn to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Like Elijah in the cave, we need to tune out the sound and fury of the storm going on around us and learn to listen to the still small voice that will lead us to walk in the way everlasting