The past six months have been long and slow. I have been physically sick for the first extended time of my life. This road is lonely and depressing at times. My spiritual life has felt detached. A desert; a long dark night of the soul. It has been particularly rough the past few weeks. Though spring has been emerging in the outside world, the bleakness of winter remains inside me. It is not that God has left me; rather, my sense of his imminent presence has dulled. This too, is a first for me – at least for this long a time. Certainly there have been short seasons where he seemed far away (usually because I had moved away from Him due to my own choices), but this has been different. So far as I can discern there has been no apparent sin separating us; just the heaviness of sickness and the exhaustion of my mind and emotions from the pain and discomfort. God feels absent. I know in the core of my being that this is untrue. He is always with me because he lives in me. But practically and experientially I have had little sense of his presence and little of the joy that has been my strength for so many years. I don’t feel like myself.
Gradually, I have noticed a longing that has begun within me. It is a longing for the One who loves me. A longing for the One whom I love. In the Song of Songs, we hear this same kind of longing developing in the Bride. She cries, “On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not,” (Song 3:1 ESV). While on her couch at night a painful longing seizes her. She’s heartsick with the fact that her Beloved isn’t there with her. She can’t stand that she has lost the feeling of his nearness. It seems almost as though he has forsaken her. Has he forgotten her? Has he changed his mind? Did he move on? Does he no longer love her?
This longing compels her to seek the one “whom her soul loves.” She is willing to get up in the night to search for him throughout the city. It doesn’t matter the time. It doesn’t matter the inconvenience. She is single minded in her pursuit of the one she loves. I remember a time when I was courting my wife Catherine and feeling this same way. We had not seen each other for a few days. I was agitated. I felt out of sync. I wanted so desperately to see her that when she returned to town I made a bee-line for her parent’s house even though it was late in the evening and the drive was across the city. I remember the look of surprise on her father’s face as I inquired whether I might see her for a few moments. He looked at his watch, hesitated briefly, and let me in the door. I only stayed a short while; I remember that her father stayed up watching the television in the adjoining family room while I was there. It didn’t matter to me. I was with the woman I loved and her nearness was enough.
I’ve noticed that my soul has begun to long again for the One whom I love. I have found myself crying out to Him with renewed intention. There is an urgency within me to re-connect with Him despite the time, the inconvenience, the seeming absence, the distance. It’s not that I have stopped seeking Him during these months. Only that my desperation for Him has grown again of late. Perhaps that’s the reason for “dark nights of the soul” we all experience in our journey with Him. These renew our pursuit and passion for the One whom our souls love and to strengthen us to go hard after God again. To not take for granted His presence but to pursue Him with a new depth and strength again.
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