Dark Night of the Soul 2010 – Round 2

“Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.”

~ Job 13:15

In the past couple of months, I have had every single aspect of my life attacked. I have no wish to relive my experiences by writing of them here, but just simply know that things that could go wrong have gone wrong, and the past week has been exceptionally bad. I have been battling a severe depression that I believe only a demon can bring on. I keep getting hit financially and things are so bad that all I am looking for is to survive and not even that is plausible at the moment. I have felt abandoned by both God and the one who matters most to me.

I know that I know that I know that the following are true:

• God knows all there is to know.
• He sees everything that happens.
• He cares for and loves me.
• He has all power.
• He has never abandoned me and He never will.

Yet I do feel like He has left me alone. His silence is deafening and devastating.  Knowing all that I know about Him and yet not sensing Him or hearing from Him hurts beyond what words can describe. I have been feeling such anguish over feeling like He has chosen to sit out on my suffering.

I keep going back to last Sunday’s sermon on tested faith, and I ask myself Todd’s questions: What is it in my life that I have to have to be happy? What is it apart from God that I have to have for life to possess meaning? What is it in my life that if God took it away would send me into total utter despair?

“…even the promises of God, the good things of God, can become idols to us if we end up treasuring those good promises even more than we treasure the One who gives them.”

~Todd Pruitt

Could that be my problem? Perhaps I have been treasuring His blessings more than I treasure Him?

“It’s not unlike God, that for reasons belonging only to Himself, to take something away from us that will cause us pain in this life.”

~Todd Pruitt

Whatever it is, I know this: I do not have to like what I am going through, but I can “count it all joy” because of the effect of tested faith – a pure refined faith more precious than gold. As much anguish as pain brings, and as unwelcome as testing can be, God has said that I can count it as joy.  As difficult as that is, and as unwanted an action as I wish to run from, I know that is what He wants -- for me to focus on the end-product of testing my faith.

“What we gain from the test is better than going through life without what we gain from the test.”

~Todd Pruitt

“Our job in life is not to be successful, but to be faithful.”

~Billy Graham in “Hope For The Troubled Heart”