“How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?” (Psalm 13:1)
What are you going to do if He leaves you there, what will you do if the Lord removes Himself from you for more than a short season? He has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us, but that does not mean that He will continue to respond to your prayers in the way you would desire Him to.
I believe that may who profess to serve the Almighty in countries where poverty is not rampant, where a bed and bathroom, a pantry of food and a roof over their heads is not considered a luxury, but expected, have determined as those in the Old Testament did that the blessings of the Lord are counted in the coin of materialism, and that if these items are not replaced when broken, worn out, or simply have lost their initial luster, then as women of those days who were childless felt abandoned by the Lord, so do these today.
“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:19)
But far too many have determined their wants to be needs, and if they are not supplied, they believe themselves to be abandoned by the Lord, or at the least, out of His favor.
What if He decides to leave you there, what if He removes everything from you and you no longer have the financial wherewithal to replace even the smallest item? What if He adds pain to that, suffering, grief and sorrow? What if He decides it is time for you to experience the dark night of the soul?
You have nothing and it feels as if even the Lord has deserted you. If He decides to put you up on that cross, it will be Him who decides when it is time for you to be taken down.
Here is where many would say to themselves, “God would not do that to me, my Father in heaven loves me too much to put me through that.” Did He love Lazarus as He left him to die at the rich man’s gate. What of those spoken of in high regard in Hebrews 11:38, “(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”
Is there a limit to the truth of 2nd Timothy 3:12 that you will accept before you reconsider your servitude to Him? “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
You have nothing, and it seems as if the Lord has deserted you, for your prayers of the materialistic items to return are not answered, the pain is not abated, the grief will not subside.
There is a dark night of the soul my friends that few are blessed to experience, nor do they desire to, for it leaves you with absolutely nothing in this life but Christ, and what He can give you, only Him. Many have died in captivity in this night, pain racking their bodies, but a mind in peace the few have ever known, in the faith of assurance that does not look at circumstances, that gives not one thought to personal loss, to the pain and suffering.
In the dark night of the soul the light of Christ is barely visible, a pinprick that never seems to come closer, yet never fully fades away. It is, in a sense, where our Savior was when He cried, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)
This is not a test, it is a blessing, one that few will experience and even fewer desire. Here you meet the Living God face to face, and you realize He is all you ever needed.
There are blessings without the experience of this dark night of the soul, but there is something there that cannot be found anywhere else, the full and complete assurance that He was all you ever needed in the first place.
“After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” (Gen. 15:1)
