Dark Silence

In the cold and rainy darkness of the evening, my heart cried out for light and warmth and finds neither. In the warm, dry comfort of my home, it fails to satisfy the loneliness. Though I believe, I cannot reach God. I seem to step out in faith to reach nothingness. Where has He gone and why has He left me in this place?

'I will never leave you or forsake you' seems to bump up against, 'My God why have you forsaken me' tonight. Saint John of the Cross wrote about the 'dark night of the soul'. The psalmist wrote often about those moments when God seems so far away and so slow in response. Isaiah and Micah talk about God hiding his face. It's a normal natural event in the life of a believer. It's also sad and uncomfortable and lonely. My heart cries out for God and is impatient until my God responds.

Why does God do this? Why does God create a hunger for Himself in our hearts, a desire for His company and a craving for the deeper things of faith and then withdraw or at least become silent and still. It's not the peaceful companionable silence of friends who are just content to be. It's the dark uncomfortable silence that follows an awkward statement, an argument, the moment when small talk is over but no common topic seems to present itself. It's unsettling.

I know sometimes God does it because we are out of fellowship with Him and He loves us too much to pretend we are not. I think He sometimes does this when He is ready for us to move to new locations and we are very comfortable with the location we are in. I have experienced this type of dark silence as I stopped being who I was and waited to see who I would be. I do not know what this is, I just don't like it very much.

Here is my source of comfort tonight: I know with all my being that even though I cannot feel Him, He is very present. I have developed enough confidence in His Word that when He tells me there is no place I can go and be out of His vision, that this is true. And while this is sad and lonely, I am not grieving as though there was no hope. Who knows that in the next few moments He will reach out and touch me and fill my heart with such peace that the loneliness is a distance memory. But if He does not, I am content in knowing that when He has accomplished His purposes the dark silence will be lifted and the communion of the Spirit will be restored.

It is not always comfortable. It is not always as I would wish it to be. I am confident that God remains trustworthy and true to His word. And so I wait believing He will do all He has said He would do. It is dark and silent, but it is not the end, it's part of a new beginning in the journey home. It's a long way to go, but the destination is worth the stops along the way.

Still, the silence is dark tonight.