Adjusting to the dark
“Why must holy places be dark places?”
C.S. Lewis
Many times, faithfulness is like being in a dark room. And instead of fleeing, you slowly let your eyes adjust. And just as soon as you can make out a few shadowy objects, you’re lead into deeper darkness.
And all of life can feel like an unending journey into darker darkness. Each room that comes is impossibly dark for a long time, and all of the squinting and straining does nothing. All you can do is sit in the darkness and wait for something else to give you sight.
This is a world where he doesn’t show himself clearly, he only gives us glimpses. He hides himself and his voice, and asks us to believe what our senses and minds say is impossible. We are lead into places we don’t understand.
That uncomfortable darkness reveals our faithfulness, or lack thereof. We are forced to come to terms with the inadequacy of our greatest strength and the failures of our strongest virtues. We are brought to a place where we cannot rely on ourselves, where no light in our world could guide us.
“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith— more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire— may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
— 1 PETER 1:6-9
It’s hard to feel excited about faithfulness, when all it appears to be is survival or refinement. Those moments in the dark do not feel very victorious. There is little pride in being pulled through the trials and barely making it by the skin of your teeth. But to be at one’s lowest, to have had sleepless nights and worried days, and still say, “I believe. I trust,” is the whole of faithfulness.
You cannot remove faith from the uncomfortable darkness. It’s understanding the incomprehensible by understanding that you can not understand it. The faithfulness of the Holy Spirit is what empowers us to believe and keep believing.