Psalm89:1-18; Psalm 89:19-52
Jeremiah 16:10-21; Romans 7:1-12; John 6:1-15
At times God seems absent. The Protestant assumption (at least as I've encountered it) is that the person to whom God seems absent is being judged. Since at least St. John of the Cross (in the 16th century) another theology has developed that looks at a time in which God seems absent as a time of soul refining and a chance to seek God for his own merits and not just how we feel.
Mother Teressa is the most recent and longest example of someone who walked in holiness and who felt as if God was absent for nearly 50 years. Therese of Lisieux also experienced a long dark night. I give these names to you in the hope they will help you make sense of your experience if you are feeling God's absence. There is a huge grace for the one feeling like God is absent in being able to pray expecting God's refining more than the more protestant view of judgment.
But I'm hesitant to hold onto the theology of a dark night of the soul or an absent God lest belief in needing a feeling of separation becomes self fulfilling by my expectant creation rather than God's sovereign action. I learned of this theology in the years I've processed 72 hours when I was on retreat and felt God to be absent. Those hours of felt separation from God were so gut wrenching that my meditations of what hell is like begin there. These hours give me particular compassion and persistence when people come on retreats and feel as if everyone except them are receiving a touch by God.
Questions for reflection and comment:
A yes/no question, do you think feeling absence from God is necessary for Christian growth?
Why do you believe a period of God feeling distant is (or is not) necessary for growth in love of God for God's own merits?
What stories do you have of feeling as if God is absent and how people interpreted the feeling?
Monday, April 4, 2011
Dark Night of the Soul
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1 comment:
1: I don't know if it's necessary but I'm pretty confident it's a more or less universal experience and God is all about using those experiences to bring us closer to him.
2: I like the questions posed in the song What Would I Have Done a few days back. Realizing the gravity of what's been done for us to be in such intimacy with the Father and less appreciated without a frame of reference.
3: My own way of dealing with this feeling of separation is to keep it in the context of the big picture. It won't last forever and it's just for a time. as Jesus was dying on the cross, he experienced complete separation from the Father. I'm so thankful that I don't have to endure that.
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