Trapped and unable to do anything but call to heaven as your very desperation becomes seemingly urgent and critical, your grief only intensifies and grows more excruciating as heaven’s silence is deafening. It feels like the darkness itself will suffocate you.

It wouldn’t seem to make sense, but by God’s designs this darkness will become a special and treasured place. Here, in this place of nothing, we will begin to learn to see in the dark. As the spirit sees.

Your every means of help, relief, aide, and comfort has been stripped away. It doesn’t matter what kind of circumstance it is. In any case, when the Lord brings us into the dark night and we truly have no where else to turn for help or even hope, when the dark is the thickest, he is there.

If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,  Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.  Psalms 139:8-10

We are stripped. The reason for this is so we come to see our desperate state and we truly learn by experience, that it all is vanity and futility unless it is by God.

There, in the dark and the silence, we find new ‘friends. We have lost our friends in our soul and flesh, the things of the world, the ways of the world and our carnal mind in this situation. These friends can’t help us and only add to our frustration, so we begin to cast them off and not trust them. Our new ‘friends’ become; the will of God, His mind on the matter, His heart in the matter. Here we begin to become one with His will for us. Here is where we begin to experience some of the deepest transformation we are apprehended of God to go through.

(Brief note: I am reminded of the story ‘Hinds Feet On High Places’ by Hannah Hurnard, where the stories character, Much-Afraid, had two companions. For a long time they were Sorrow and Suffering and then after some time they became known to her as Joy and Peace. Isn’t that wonderful? I need to read this book again.)

Through this transformation in the silence and darkness of all other hope, God gives us ‘eyes to see’ in the spirit. To see His plan partially, to have some understanding of what He is doing and why. Much like Jesus asleep in the boat during the storm when the disciples were afraid they would perish, Jesus was calm because He KNEW they would NOT perish. The disciples didn’t know this.

We need to be brought to the brink of devastation and destruction to learn that He has us safe and secure. Not always comfortable and not the way we would want, but He has us. He is FAITHFUL. His faithfulness is not just an aspect of His character. He IS faithful, just as He IS LOVE. These are solid. He is solid. As we become more like Him, we too shall become more solid.

In time, we learn to see in the dark for ourselves and we can begin to see in the dark for others as well. They don’t know or understand what is happening to them. But like Jesus knew what the disciples didn’t and was thereby able to calm the storm for them, we too, may help calm a storm for others while they are yet with little faith in knowing the faithfulness of God.

“I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, In paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them And rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do, And I will not leave them undone.”  Isaiah 42:16

“I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places, So that you may know that it is I, The LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name. Isaiah 45:3

The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.  Isaiah 45:7

Who is among you that fears the LORD, That obeys the voice of His servant, That walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.  Isaiah 50:10

“For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you.  Isaiah 60:2

Related posts: Dark Night of the Soul and Holy Darkness