We will go through times when our awareness of God goes dark. Last week we described an exercise for developing deep faith. In these times we can’t sense God no matter what we do and no matter how hard we try to figure it out. These seasons are very disturbing and usually trigger fear and discouragement. But, these times are opportunities to develop deep faith, so we need to stay away from embracing fear and doubt. Below is a prayer to help us through these times. It is best to consider each line and choose to apply that to your heart; in other words, do what the prayer says.
Prayer for Walking Through a Dark Time
I let go of trying to see God.
I let go of trying to feel God.
I let go of making sure that God is there.
I let go of fear due to my felt lack of connection to God.
I let go of all efforts to eliminate this dryness or darkness with my effort.
Instead, I simply trust Jesus where I am.
I sit and wait peacefully in the dryness or darkness.
I center more on my desire for God than on intellectual effort.
My spirit flows with God’s Spirit as best as it can.
Again, it is best to use your daily quiet time to ruminate on these attitudes. You are learning to master the teaching: “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7).
Deep faith may be frightening at first. It normally takes much effort and time to become proficient. For me, it takes years. When you first focus on this process you may need to do this dozens of times a day, unless God gives extra grace. You will need to choose to be mostly content (we can’t completely eliminate our desire to be with our Groom) with not feeling God at all. You will need to let go of trying to feel God, spiritually “seeing” God, “making sure” God is there, working things out in your head and other strategies for feeling secure or “getting” to God. In other words, you need to let go of finding spiritual light with your own effort because it only produces false light. These strategies are counterproductive; they end in frustration which weakens your faith and increases your spiritual distress. Trust that God is working something good in you.
As you let go of these old ways, accustom yourself to the new “place” where you have dark faith. Gradually, you will be able to remain in this place of deep faith for longer periods of time. Eventually, you will come to prefer dark faith because it is a deeper connection that is little influenced by moods or circumstances and so it is stronger and more stable.
