A Dark Night Of The Soul Is Normal
Most Christians go through one or more periods in their life when God seems absent. We use different terms for this such as dryness, dark night, desolation, desert time, or wilderness time. John of the Cross (1542-1591) coined the term dark night of the soul to refer to these times in his book Dark Night of the Soul. Even great Christians in history we admire go through such times. For example, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, Mother Teresa, and Oswald Chambers. Bruce Demarest mentions the last three in his book Seasons of the Soul, which I highly recommend, beginning on p. 84. He also discusses desolation in general which is very helpful. (There is a link to this book on Amazon on our Resources page.) Walking through these times is very difficult and it is important to understand some basic principles so that it isn’t more difficult than it should be. More importantly, there are Continue Reading →