I recently mentioned my “long dark night of the soul” to a friend, who replied, “Are you sure? It seems a little short to me.” 

Everyone’s a critic - even when it comes to dark periods of the soul. But, I had to agree: “Perhaps it was more of a short afternoon nap of the soul.

Perhaps it was, as my friend suggested, just a case of burnout. I can think of a dozen contributing factors to my sense of discouragement, loneliness, apathy and near-despair. Is this any different than the “long dark night” to which St. John of the Cross refers (to be honest, I’ve never read St. John of the Cross)? Is grace the only shortening factor?

Ok, for the record, I am not complaining because my recent dark time was short-lived. I am not complaining at all – in fact, I rejoice in the grace that brought me out of it. Rather, I am merely giving consideration to the nature of dark times in general. Are there distinctly different types of dark times that we go through? I guess the real question is, are there some dark times that God brings us through for His purposes, and others that we enter all by ourselves? Or, are all dark times the result of our own soul’s wandering?

Jesus, of course, experienced 40 days in the wilderness. However, I don’t think this experience is what we are talking about. Wilderness experiences, if this is the model for wilderness experiences, are times of reflection, prayer, and testing. They are not necessarily times of depression and despair. In fact, the wilderness seems to be a time to draw close to God, not to drift away. Jesus’ soul was not wandering, and I doubt any of His emotions could be described as depression.

The Song of Solomon, Chapter 5, describes a time where God cannot be found:

I opened for my lover,
but my lover had left; he was gone.
My heart sank at his departure.
I looked for him but did not find him.
I called him but he did not answer.

Here, we see the woman’s pulling back earlier, in verse 3, apparently unwilling at first to venture outside with her lover, representative of God. However, we then see God in verse 4 reaching out, His presence overcoming her reluctance. She then enters a period where her lover has apparently hidden himself. However, this period is a time of her dedicated pursuit of her lover; it is one of hunger, not one of apathy and depression.

I don’t think that God ever leads us into a place of depression and despair. However, He may bring us to a place in our own journey where we recognize where it is that we are headed, and the result could be a “dark night of the soul” experience as we are faced with this reality. As Stephen Lawhead has written, “Reality can be most severe; it has a way of punishing those who ignore it too long." (Merlin, pg 430).

Todd Hunter has borrowed the concept of narrative, or story, from various postmodern thinkers, and his interpretation of the concept of story has greatly influenced my thinking of late. Each of us live our lives according to a story, which is where we get our ideas about life; this story provides a framework for what we do and think. It is partly truth and partly fiction, and is fluid, growing and changing as we grow and change. 

If the Bible teaches us anything, it is God’s story, from Genesis to Revelation. Free will means that we each have the choice to live in God’s story, or create one of our own. God, however, has made it clear that His story is the only story that will work from an eternal perspective. It could be said that those of us who are Christians are those who have determined that we want to live in God’s story.

My thinking at this point is that if we could manage to live constantly in God’s story, we would never wind up in any kind of dark night of the soul. (Now, I am not saying that there aren’t physically-caused chemical imbalances that could result in depressive states. That’s a different issue.) Jesus lived constantly in God’s story, even in his time in the wilderness. As far as we know, Paul also lived constantly in God’s story, so that he was content in whatever situation he found himself.

Most of us, however, drift out of God’s story from time to time into one of our own making, without even being aware of it. We may even perceive that we are smack dab in the center of God’s story, when in fact we are drifting away. Peter gives us a great example when he proclaims “not so, Lord,” prompting Jesus to rebuke Satan. Peter must have been shocked; one minute, he’s The Rock, the next, he’s Satan. That’s how easy it is to step out of God’s story.

Many of us rely too much on our own abilities, or on physical “realities.” Most of our lives are ruled as much or even more by what we see, than by what God tells us. However, even with that we can manage to retain a hunger for God. The woman in the Song of Solomon may not have been living completely in her lover’s story (her story continued indoors in Chapter 6, when God’s story was moving outside), but even in her story, she never lost her desire for him.

Sometimes, however, a variety of things can cause us to actually lose sight of God’s story, and as a result we can lose our desire to live there. Self-awareness is a prime example, as by definition we have shifted our focus from God’s story to our own story. Religion, I think, is another prime example, for religion gives us the impression of living in the story, while in fact we are pursuing some other plot entirely. Materialism is yet another cause of losing sight of God’s story, as evidenced in the parable of the seeds: If we choose to live among the weeds (concerns of the world), we are likely to be choked.

The concerns of the world, of course, encompass more than just a basic materialism. Paul warns the singles of Corinth that choosing marriage (while certainly not a sin) will result in greater worldly concerns, and with it, a greater potential for distraction from God’s story. Many good things, when given too central a place, can easily cause us to be diverted.

The concerns of the world – job demands, family demands, home maintenance, paying bills – all are good things. All of these indicate the blessing of God. However, all of these things can take our focus away from the Kingdom (which is really another way of referring to God’s story). As the concerns of the world (plus the other distractions of the world, which are not so good) wear on us day after day, we start to lose focus. We lose our place, so to speak, in God’s story. This “losing our place,” I think, is often at the heart of our soul’s dark times.

As we get slowly pulled away from the light, we are bound to wind up in darkness. And, often we get worn down physically as well as spiritually, and sooner or later we have no energy whatsoever to find our way back. Grace, however, may be the true initiator of the long dark night of the soul.

Usually, when we drift into darkness, we are not that aware of it. We may be tired, grumpy, moody and depressed, but our soul, if anything, is apathetic. It is not until God in pure grace shines His light on us that our soul realizes its darkness. It is then we experience agony, as we realize we have been living in the wrong story. It’s not until Jesus yells, “get behind me, Satan,” or the cock crows 3 times – the severity of reality – that we experience true agony. That, in my thinking, is the true dark night of the soul.

The Rich Young Ruler may very well have been thrust into a long dark night of the soul after his encounter with Jesus. Both Mark and Matthew report that he went away sad, for he had great wealth – in other words, he went away sad, for he realized he was in the wrong story. Was it an act of unkindness for Jesus to treat him so abruptly, or was it in fact a great act of grace? We don’t know if he ever repented; but, without his encounter with grace, he would never have been aware of his need to repent.

It is grace that calls to repent, to change stories. It is grace that calls us back to the light, where healing and restoration are possible. And sometimes, grace is painful. Pain is our “red light on the dashboard” that tells us that something is wrong; it doesn’t exist for its own sake. When we become aware – sometimes painfully so – of the dark in our soul, we have an opportunity to reach out and grab onto God and choose to live His story, or to choose to remain in our own.

The dark night of the soul reveals to us that we are completely powerless to make our story work. Furthermore, it reveals to us that God will not help us make any other story but His work.

Often (too often, which indicates I have a learning disability when it comes to staying in God’s story) I have found that trying to make my own story work presents itself as a great struggle in which I feel the need to engage; there is actually a feeling that to achieve any sense of internal satisfaction, I must struggle and prevail.

In truth, however, the answer if quite simple, and involves no struggle whatsoever. It merely requires submission and repentance – a humble admission that I am in the wrong story. I then find that although I think I have lost my place in God’s story, He has not; grace has my place bookmarked. I am back in the story, having lost nothing. This, again, is the miracle of grace, which is more amazing than we will ever comprehend.

Jesus, of course, knew this as the rich young ruler walked away. With man, working out your own story is impossible, like pushing a camel through the eye of a needle. With God, however, should we choose to step back into God’s story, nothing is impossible.

The long dark night of the soul, then, is not something to fear, to avoid, or to struggle against. Rather, it is something to be embraced as a work of grace – not the darkness, which was something we entered of our own wanderings – but the grace which exposes the darkness, to lead us into the light.

Through many dangers, toils and snares...
we have already come.
'Twas Grace that brought us safe thus far...
and Grace will lead us home.