Travelling into the light
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Christians are often reluctant to talk about their darkness as though suffering is a cause for shame says Jane Grayshon writing here with great honesty as she travels towards the light. |
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I have been sorely tempted, this week, to ask the editor to
excuse me from writing this article. If I can be brave enough to write
as things are, as opposed to how I think they ought to be, I will
‘confess’ that life is very dark for me at the
moment. I could ignore the dark bit. I could write reams about my
recent, very rich experience of God. Indeed, I wrote so much in my
private journal during that period of ‘light’, I
got through a year’s worth of pages in just a few weeks. That
time was a gift, quite unbidden, unexpected, clearly from God Himself.
His Holy Spirit blew into my prayer times such that I was taken to a
whole new realm. I found myself wanting to get up very early in the
morning because Jesus met with me, day after day. I’m sure it
will stand out as a pinnacle in my whole life. However, hearing God
talk to me as vividly as I believe I did, was not to last. Because here
I am in darkness. Again. Has my journeying stopped? No. Have I
‘back-slidden’? I almost giggle at the word, for I
recall how, 30 years ago, I was in a group of Christians who would
become very solemn at the mention of anyone
‘backsliding’. Oh, how we disapproved! I
don’t think I can have understood very much about the
importance of darkness in those days.
I now grieve when I hear Christians gloss over their darkness as if it
were a cause for shame. If we present ourselves as if we’ve
grown out of dark times, I think we are at risk of failing to
understand the very process of growing towards God. Perhaps I can use
the image of photography. Before digital cameras (if we can remember
such a long time ago) we used to have films that needed to be
developed. We sent the film off to a laboratory. A transient moment, a
split second caught in a flash, was made into a lasting image. We named
this, ‘processing’.
‘Developing’. Where was this processing done? In a
dark room.
I am coming to believe that God provides each of us with a dark room at
some time or another, and that that is where our faith is developed and
matured. That is where we really process the wonderful times
we’ve experienced with Him. It was in the darkness of prison
that John the Baptist questioned his faith that Jesus was the Messiah,
although he had previously preached with total certainty. The
questioning was important because, through it, John came to receive a
fuller understanding from Jesus. If times of darkness are times to
value, then (and I shudder to be writing this, because it’s
not pleasant) perhaps we should not shrink from them. Most importantly,
we should not be ashamed of them, and nor should we cause our fellow
Christian to feel ashamed. The dark times are an essential part of the
journey of faith.
Look at Jesus after His first moment of spiritual elation. He heard His
Father speak to Him – wonderful! Even better, what He heard
was deeply assuring: ‘This is my Son, my beloved, in whom I
am well pleased.’ One would think that the purpose of such an
experience would be to motivate and equip Him to get stuck in to His
preaching. If Jesus had been in our churches today, would we not invite
Him to church and to come up to the front and tell us all about His
experience of the light? Then we could be inspired. We could ask Him to
teach us how we could hear our Father speak to us, as He did.
Strangely, Jesus did not begin His speaking ministry when He first saw
the light. He didn’t stay around to tell anyone about this
wonderful part of His journey. Instead, He was led by the Spirit into
the wilderness – the dark room.
So what happens in the dark room of our faith? I find it hard to
articulate, and perhaps that’s because of the very fact of
the darkness. We cannot see. We may not feel God at all. Sometimes I
have screamed to Him, ‘That’s enough!’
I’ve felt that I would drown in the awful circumstances.
Faith tells me that God is in control. Faith tells me that He
doesn’t make mistakes; that He knows best. In the dark room,
there may be only a tiny hint of light – perhaps
it’s the recollection of one truth about God, and that one
thing will be enough. Enough. It may feel too little, but my feelings
need to be processed so that they are in harmony with my faith. If I
take one step in the dark, I can trust that I can take one more
tomorrow. I am not alone. My desk is strewn with letters from
Christians who have written to me, despairing as they have described
their own darkness. Where is God? they ask. I want to encourage these
people with their genuine quest to find the genuine God. This is the
God whose Spirit leads us into the darkness of a wilderness, just as He
led His own Son.
Am I travelling towards the light even though I’m in the dark
right now? Yes, I am. Experience tells me so. And I can almost feel my
faith being strengthened as I write those words.
