Elijah House
The Power of the Cross
Through the Spirit and the Word
Working to Heal and Restore Families
www.elijahhouse.org
The Dark Night Of The Spirit Part 1
Printed in Healing Hearts, Changing Lives Vol. 00 Issue 3
by John Sandford
Some of you may have read about the dark night of the soul in our book The Elijah Task, or have heard about it on one of our teaching tapes. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, or who don't remember, here's a brief review:The dark night of the soul is a time of crushing, "perpetrated upon us" by the Lord for our good. Those whom God calls to high service He must prepare, so first He begins with teaching and with humble places of service. Then, through inner healing, He transforms our broken places into gardens of glory. But when He is done with healing the dysfunctional areas of our character and behavior, He begins to break and crush all the areas that do function well! His purpose is to destroy every confidence we have in our flesh.
In Philippians 3:3-9, St.Paul says, "it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh-though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more..." He goes on to describe his impeccable credentials as a "Hebrew of Hebrews," then finishes by saying, "I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."
Those called to high service must not trust in any supposed strength or goodness in themselves, but must wholly lean on the Lord. We cannot learn this merely mentally as a principle; it has to be written into our hearts through painful experience. We cannot successfully "decrease" ourselves, because we'd be proud that we did, then have to die again, only to be proud again, and so on and on! We must be slain solely by the Lord, so "that no man should boast before God." (I Cor. 1:29)
Paula and I were singers; He broke our voices during our crushing. Though we were well-known teachers, people fled from us; we were, for the time, strangers (see John 10:5). I was a devotional mystic and could soar into the Lord's presence or into "the heavenlies" as St. Paul testified. But during that time I couldn't find His presence, and couldn't experience, or even understand, the visions that used to be second nature to me. I had taught others how to hear God, how to have dreams and visions and comprehend their meanings, yet what had been easy was now impossible. In the dark night, all was dark. I couldn't hear God at all.
Besides breaking my confidence in my own abilities, He was asking, "Can you believe and trust when there are no experiences to confirm and encourage? Is your walk based on faith, or signs? Can you believe and love without anything other than simple faith?"
Scripture talks of the dark night in Matthew 21:44: "And he who falls on this stone will be broken into pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust." (I like better here the King James version, which says "it will grind him to powder.") St. Theresa of Avila wrote of it in her book, Interior Castles. Her compatriot and friend, St. John of the Cross, also wrote about it in his book, The Dark Night of the Soul. Nebuchadnezzar's seven years eating grass may have been a dark night of the soul, as God was preparing him to rule as he had not done before.
There is an end. One emerges, in St. Teresa's words, out of the sixth mansion of the soul, which is the dark night, into the seventh mansion, which she calls "the mansion of beatitudes." We move out of incapacity into wondrous capability-solely by grace. We are transferred from striving into rest, because we cease from our own works (Hebrews 4:10: "for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His."). He lifts us from the pit into a wide place, from isolation into the blessedness of His abiding Presence. How wonderful to experience so easily His presence again, to feel His undeserved love, and His grace (despite what we are!) coursing through our being .
And how sweet it is that we don't have to go through the dark night more than once! If we forget, He may jog our memory by dipping us for a moment, but we never have to spend months and years in that particular lonely darkness again. Yet, in The Dark Night of the Soul, St. John wrote something further which, at the time, I could not comprehend. It sailed over my head, beyond my experience and maturity in the Lord. He spoke of the dark night of the spirit. He described it eloquently, but I couldn't understand what he was talking about. I wasn't ready.
In the last year and a half, the Holy Spirit has taken me into this dark night! I begin to comprehend it. It hasn't lasted as long; I'm coming out of it.
In Part 2 we will look at what God teaches us in that Dark Night.
For more information about Elijah House...
Phone: (208) 773-1645; Fax: (208) 773-1647
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM pacific standard time, Mon-Fri.
General Email: ehinfo@elijahhouse.org
Elijah House
17397 W Laura Ln
Post Falls, ID, USA 83854
208-773-1645
fax 208-773-1647
http://www.elijahhouse.org
