Dark Night of the Soul

[D. Allan]

When I had mine I sure could have used some help. Maybe something like this would have helped:

http://shalomplace.org/darknight/

All I could do was sit in a chair all day for days and days. I don't know what I would have done if my wife had not been my there for me. Anybody else ever have an experience like that?

How did you survive it?

d.allan

[Amelia]

Oh my yes, I have been there. Due to several different things happening at about the same time, I developed severe depression and agoraphobia. I was housebound for over a year. I would always get up and get dressed. I would always start out the day with tasks to do but somehow would find myself, hours later, sitting on the couch in the dark.

It was lots of crying. Many days and nights of praying. Many doctors and medications. Lots of talking. I did not have as much spousal support as I would have liked but I eventually got through the darkness.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

I eventually got through the darkness.

Good for you, Amelia.

Do you feel stronger because of it? Or at least deeper?

If my wife had not 'pulled' me out of the chair I don't know how long I would have sat there. It was difficult to even speak, even to family, things were so dark. I tried reading spiritual books, but everything i read made me feel condemned.

I felt like God had abandoned me. Now, I feel like She is my lover (if i may use that expression)!

[D. Allan]

Here is a short discription of the numbing event:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

A blessing in disguise some call it. For anyone going through it any blessing is completely disquised. Its a blessing making it through it. For me the 'blessing' came at the moment when I gave up all hope, and like Jacob insisted on a blessing and hung on until the Spirit delivered me that morning.

~d.allan

[Nan]

Do such experiences constitute severe clinical depression, is there a contributing spiritual element, or is the spiritual desert more a result of the depression?

Catherine Marshall wrote of such an experience in her book Light in my Darkest Hour and her descriptions match some here.

I asked the questions because the answers might influence the direction of therapy. My mind goes back to at least one for whom the struggle was too much....when those on the outside can feel so helpless.

To you who have posted here - I am so glad and thankful you have come through to the light.

[John317]

Quote:

I eventually got through the darkness.

I'm thankful that God led you out of that terrible darkness. I know what that means, because I also have gone through experiences like those. I'm actually glad that God allowed me to go through them because I learned to trust Him completely.

The Bible refers to God as neither a "She" nor as our "lover." That is because the God of the Bible is not a "She." God is always referred to as "He."

God does, of course, love you. In fact, when we are "in union with Christ," God loves us, incredibly, as much as He loves His Son. However, that does not make Him our lover. He is our Savior, our Judge, our Friend, etc. He invites us to tell Him the most intimate secrets and we are to love Him with our whole being. But we should always remember that He is God and not a mere mortal such as one of us. I think we do well to remember that familiarity breeds contempt.

Anyone is free to use any expressions he likes, but if we are talking about God, we need to use expressions about Him that are consistent with His self-revelation.

It's important to remember verses such as Isaiah 8:20; John 17:17; 10:35; Galatians 1: 6-17; 1 Peter 1:24; 2 Peter 3: 14-16; and 1 Cor. 14: 32, 37, 38.

[Clio]

The Dark Night of the Soul.... I wonder if King David used those same words to describe the feelings that ripped the beautiful, anguished words of some of the Psalms from his depths?

Consider [and] hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the [sleep of] death; Psalms 13:3

For I [am] ready to halt, and my sorrow [is] continually before me. Psalms 38:17

I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, [even] from good; and my sorrow was stirred. Psalms 39:2

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Psalms 116:3

What heights and depths of joy and anguish are compassed on the words of the Psalms... and David goes on to tell us that he believed... and therefore he speaks, of the deliverance worked in his life by the Lord. He says, "I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living. I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted." Psalms 116:9-10

Surely one who can write of sorrow and his own death from sorrow and anguish in the same breath knows well the Dark Night of the Soul.

When such has entered my spirit, I lay face down clinging to the cross in spirit, crying aloud "I will not leave until thou bless me!" even as did Jacob. And I draw comfort that King David (who I believe was bi-polar! ) was greatly beloved of the Lord, Who did not hold his frailty against David.

As I have grown in my faith and my relationship with my Beloved Bridegroom, I find it easier and easier to turn to Him, rather than to allow my emotions... a product of the heart of man (and there is nothing so deceitful! Jeremiah 17:9)to continue to torment me.

I find in those times that I almost unconsciously begin to bind my emotions to the peace, joy, comfort, and love of the Holy Spirit and to loose from me all feelings of fear, despair, desperation, depression, and anguish according to Jesus instructions in Mathew 16:19 and 18:18. For whatever is bound on earth is bound in heaven and whatever is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven. Jesus called this principle the very keys to the Kingdom.

And it makes perfect sense if you think about it. He gave us the method by which we can enter before the throne and transact spiritual business... In a place the Adversary cannot reach...

Clio

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Do such experiences constitute severe clinical depression, is there a contributing spiritual element, or is the spiritual desert more a result of the depression?

It was mostly a spiritual event in my case. The depression seemed to be caused by the spiritual desert. Following a most joyous conversion experience, I was plunged into the depths. The contrast was horrific. There was also as a contributing factor giving up an addiction to nicotine. But the patches mostly covered up most of that problem. My treatment was a caring pastor, and Zoloft. In a few months I was ok. Three years later there was a slightly less dark recurence, but it lasted longer. Still spiritual. I had some professional anxiety counseling. Then my doctors put me on ativan. Next another doctor took me off ativan and put me on Zoloft and Trazodone. After a year or so, I went off the Zoloft.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Anyone is free to use any expressions he likes, but if we are talking about God, we need to use expressions about Him that are consistent with His self-revelation.

John, I only speak of her as s/he has revealed herself to me. Of course you know nothing of that since it is a personal experience. God is very broad-minded, not easily shocked.

I'm glad your dark nights turned out well. They do give us a deeper experience, I feel.

~d.allan

[D. Allan]

Thanks for reminding me of David and his psalms, Clio. #40 describes the dark night well:

"I waited patiently for the LORD to help me.

And he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the pit of despair,

Out of the mud and the mire.

He set my feet on solid ground

And steadied me as I walked along.

He has given me a new song to sing,

A hymn of praise to our God."

My 'new song' is different than what others may be singing, and of course different than what I sang before the dark night.

and then look at #42:

"As the deer pants for streams of water,

So I long for you, O God.

I thirst for God, for the living God.

When can I come and stand before him?

Day and night, I have only tears for food,

While my enemies continually taunt me, saying,

'Where is this God of yours?'

My heart is breaking

As I remember how it used to be:"

Oh my, yes! that is the dark night for sure. But in the midst of it David says:

"Now I am deeply discouraged,

But I will remember your kindness-"

Quote:

As I have grown in my faith and my relationship with my Beloved Bridegroom, I find it easier and easier to turn to Him, rather than to allow my emotions...

It does become easier, the relationship becomes more comfortable, we trust more. Also I find that the more we surrender, (including emotions) the more room for the Heavenly Spouse to fill us with heavenly emotions. I'm constantly amazed, every day, how much more there is to surrender! And I'm glad to let the Heavenly One have it.

~d.allan

[aldona]

Quote:

Anyone is free to use any expressions he likes, but if we are talking about God, we need to use expressions about Him that are consistent with His self-revelation.

John, I only speak of her as s/he has revealed herself to me. Of course you know nothing of that since it is a personal experience. God is very broad-minded, not easily shocked.

I'm glad your dark nights turned out well. They do give us a deeper experience, I feel.

~d.allan

God is neither a He nor a She, and at the same time encompasses everything that we understand as Male and Female. God is above and beyond the concept of gender, and yet both male and female are made in the image of God.

We refer to God as He because it is too disrespectful to refer to God as It.

We women have it easy - we can turn our imaginations to the idea of our relationship with the Heavenly Bridegroom, and we as His Bride. How can our brothers picture such an intimate and loving relationship with God if they believe Him to be exclusively male in the same way that they are?

aldona

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

D.Allen said:

Quote:

I felt like God had abandoned me. Now, I feel like She is my lover (if i may use that expression)!

Ah....the Goddess. Darkness of the Soul. ... Okay... I can dig it.

[there buster]

I believe every follower of Christ must visit Gethsemane. Paul talks about being crucified with Christ; but before Calvary comes Gethsemane. We all must walk that "lonesome valley" by ourselves, in order to find God there.

But we refer to God as "He" because He has so described himself. Describing Him as "She" invites certain dangers we should avoid.

However, if anyone seeks the feminine aspects of God, they may be found in Proverbs, where "Wisdom" is referred to as "she" (1:32). Wisdom is pictured as active with God in the creation (3:19) and thus is reminiscent of Christ in John 1.

So, there are feminine attributes of God.

Still, no matter how politically correct it may be, it is unwise to refer to God as "she."

[Nan]

I believe every follower of Christ must visit Gethsemane.

Ed I do not disagree with this statement, but I feel that at least some of the experiences described here are consistent with severe depression. Wanting to sit motionless in a chair day after day can have more explanations than a deep spiritual journey.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

We women have it easy - we can turn our imaginations to the idea of our relationship with the Heavenly Bridegroom, and we as His Bride. How can our brothers picture such an intimate and loving relationship with God if they believe Him to be exclusively male in the same way that they are?

aldona

Thank you for understanding, Aldona.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Ah....the Goddess. Darkness of the Soul. ... Okay... I can dig it.

But the darkness does not last. I'm not sure it is darkness of the 'soul' either, but instead the pain of the dying ego, the previous ideas of one's 'self.' Maybe, 'birthpangs' of the soul would describe it more accurately.

[John317]

Quote:

Anyone is free to use any expressions he likes, but if we are talking about God, we need to use expressions about Him that are consistent with His self-revelation.

John, I only speak of her as s/he has revealed herself to me. Of course you know nothing of that since it is a personal experience. God is very broad-minded, not easily shocked.

I'm glad your dark nights turned out well. They do give us a deeper experience, I feel.

~d.allan

Yes, they do give us deeper experiences, but those experiences must always be subject to the objective, written word of God. Otherwise they are liable to lead people down all kinds of wrong roads. Think of all the wrong ways Christian mystics have been led into by their subjective experiences.

The Bible is our sole standard of faith and doctrine. Beware of "personal experiences" that supposedly transcend and contradict the word of God. The Holy Spirit, who inspired the Bible, never leads one to set aside or contradict what He inspired the prophets to write.

All of the prophets had deeply personal experiences with God, yet all spoke of Him as He. Jesus, a male, called God His Father, and the Holy Spirit also is called "He" and "Him" whenever the personal pronoun is used in reference to Him.

If Jesus, who came from God, and was/is God Himself, called God "Father," and always referred to Him as "He," what sense does it make to say you know better because of some personal experience? Does your personal experience transcend Paul's or David's or Moses' or Jesus's?

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Paul talks about being crucified with Christ; but before Calvary comes Gethsemane. We all must walk that "lonesome valley" by ourselves, in order to find God there.

I'm not sure it always occurs in that order. In my conversion experience i seemed to skip Gethsemane and Calvary and go straight to the Resurection! But, i guess it caught up with me and I was Crucified, then Gethsemane came where I learned my greatest joy results from saying, 'not my will, but yours be done.'

Concerning the 'gender' of God: it seems to me the 'dangers' of referring to God as either male or female would be equal. (At least, if you consider the sexes as equal. Most do these

days.) There must be some other reason you consider it dangerous to do so.

~d.allan

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Wanting to sit motionless in a chair day after day can have more explanations than a deep spiritual journey.

But you don't understand. If you knew all the details perhaps you would. I'm thankful I found a doctor who did understand since he had relatives who had gone thru the same spiritual experience. I'm sure that you understand that I don't wish to go into all the details here. :)

[John317]

Quote:

We women have it easy - we can turn our imaginations to the idea of our relationship with the Heavenly Bridegroom, and we as His Bride. How can our brothers picture such an intimate and loving relationship with God if they believe Him to be exclusively male in the same way that they are?

aldona

Thank you for understanding, Aldona.

All of the prophets, from Moses to John the Beloved, including Jesus Himself, never had any problem having a loving and intimate relationship with God while believing Him to be exclusively male. I also have no problem thinking of Him and of having an intimate and loving relationship with Him while thinking of Him as the Bible teaches. Neither has the church for 2000 years had a problem having an intimate and loving relationship with God while accepting Him as the Bible portrays Him.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

If Jesus, who came from God, and was/is God Himself, called God "Father," and always referred to Him as "He," what sense does it make to say you know better because of some personal experience? Does your personal experience transcend Paul's or David's or Moses' or Jesus's?

Of course not. As the 'scriptures' say, however, God is no respecter of persons.

To call the Divinity, Father in this day doesn't seem to mean the same as it may have 2000 years, ago. Today father is a mere cog in the economic wheel. Today the story of the prodigal son would seem more appropriate if it were told as the Mother who ran to meet her returning son, and told the father to get up off the couch (where he is watching football) and get down to the grocery store and buy a cart full of steaks. Then she would get on the phone and invite all the family and friends to a reunion or barbeque in the back yard.

David says in Psalms 131:

"But I have stilled and quieted my soul:

Like a weaned child with its mother,

Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Isreal, put your hope in the LORD..."

Where has his soul drank and satisfied its hunger if not at the breasts of his Mother God?

~d.allan

[John317]

I understand the issue of the gender of God. I have thought about this for a long time.

We need to speak of these matters reverently and understand that we only know as much about Him as God in His infinite wisdom has chosen to reveal to us.

We also need to consider the fact that in the past many of the false gods have been female. Even some of the so-called male gods were conceived of as "lovers"-- Baal was often referred to by his worshipers as their "lover." Surely you have heard of the "demon-lover," so well known in ancient and even in modern literature and history.

We would be foolish if we thought that God had no good reason to inspire all of the prophets to refer to Him as male.

When it comes to the actual gender of God, we know almost nothing of what God is like in His personal Being, that is, in-Himself. However, I think it is safe to say-- and I say this with the utmost reverence-- that God the Father does not have sexual reproductive organs. (This has special relevance for Mormons whose doctrine, shocking as it may be to us, is that the Father had sexual intercourse with Mary to place the Son's seed in her womb.) God is Spirit. He takes on a form when He chooses to, and when He has done so, the Bible never portrays Him as having taken on a female form. He has always appeared as male, not female. Therefore, God's physical anatomy is not the reason the Bible describes God as Father rather than as mother. Neither would we be wise to switch God's gender or to think it is inconsequential or irrelevent that God chose to identify Himself as male.

Having said that, we should always keep in mind two important facts: (1) God made Adam, the man, to be the federal head of mankind. Humanity fell when Adam sinned, not when Eve sinned. Jesus is the second Adam, not the second Eve. Had Eve alone fallen into sin, God would have allowed Eve to die, and He would have given Adam another woman. Eve was not the head of humanity. (2) It takes both man and woman to be "the image of God." God is best represented by both the male and female together, as one.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

D.Allan said:

Quote:

Concerning the 'gender' of God: it seems to me the 'dangers' of referring to God as either male or female would be equal.

**snip**

There must be some other reason you consider it dangerous to do so.

I can't believe I'm reading this on a Christian forum.

I can think of a reason for referring to God as male. If you start invoking/praying/considering the Goddess instead of God, you truly do NOT know who you will be talking to /communing with.

Of course God has *female* characteristics - humans do too. That doesn't make everyone female.

.....oh man, I can't believe I'm reading this on a Christian forum.......

[Nan]

Quote:

Wanting to sit motionless in a chair day after day can have more explanations than a deep spiritual journey.

But you don't understand. If you knew all the details perhaps you would. I'm thankful I found a doctor who did understand since he had relatives who had gone thru the same spiritual experience. I'm sure that you understand that I don't wish to go into all the details here.

I said that there were more explanations possible than spiritual distress for that sort of behaviour. I was not implying that your 'dark night' was not primarily spiritual - but in some cases there are other explanations.

I say that from a background of knowing of suicides from those who have been in deep spiritual despair and feeling rejected of God. The spiritual help available was inadequate.

Of course you do not need to go into details and I accept what you are saying. But maybe you do not understand that in other situations each possible cause must be considered.

[Tom Wetmore]

...I understand the issue of the gender of God. I have thought about this for a long time...

We would be foolish if we thought that God had no good reason to inspire all of the prophets to refer to Him as male...

Blaise Pascal was quite correct - "God made man in his own image and man returned the compliment." The example of pagan gods is but an extreme to which mankind has ventured down the anthropomorphization of God. The issue here is not on the God side of the equation, but on the side of limited man trying to define God in human terms using the limitation of human imagery and human language. The divine paradox is that God is neither male nor female and yet is both at the same time. (Genesis 2:26-27 makes it quite clear that the image of God encompasses both male and female.) However, human language doesn't account for person-hood in any other way than in terms of male or female. But the masculine forms of language are almost always inclusive of females, whereas the feminine forms are generally used to limit to females only. And more significantly, personal pronouns used in reference to God are limited to those two choices since there is not a divine personal pronoun. Since God is neither and both the male form comes closest, although inadequately so. But we should be careful about limiting God to man-made boxes, language or otherwise.

Originally Posted By: John317

...Humanity fell when Adam sinned, not when Eve sinned. Jesus is the second Adam, not the second Eve. Had Eve alone fallen into sin, God would have allowed Eve to die, and He would have given Adam another woman...

John, may I ask where you draw that conclusion from? That doesn't ring true to what I have understood for a very long time.

The Genesis account makes it clear that they fell into sin together and that God pronounced judgment on them both after they both had sinned. The plan of salvation was promised because of both of their sins and as a remedy to save them both. The unfortunate implication of that last sentence is that had Eve alone sinned that God would have let her die without implementing the plan of salvation for her alone. That is very demeaning to women and certainly suggests that men are worth God dying to save, but women are replaceable and not worth saving without a man by their side. I hope that is not what you meant, but...

Tom