In a real dark night of the soul

it is always three o'clock in the morning.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Crack-up

Have you ever noticed that your greatest triumphs are all too often followed by a "dark night of the soul"--an inconsolable sense of desolation?

Witness the Jewish prophet Elijah, and how God delivered him from darkness.

In a production that might have been scripted for Indiana Jones, Elijah humiliated Queen Jezebel and destroyed the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. (It's a story worth reading in 1 Kings 18.) He listened with a measure of vindication as thousands of witnesses to the spectacle abandoned Baal and chanted, "Jehovah, he is God. Jehovah, he is God. Jehovah, he is God..." Within days, however, Elijah--exhausted, depressed, afraid--sat down under a broom bush in the wilderness and prayed that he might die.

God prescribed rest and replenishment for Elijah's body. 

You might be astonished to learn that an angel tended to Elijah's physical needs without first addressing his despondency. Elijah was given food, water, and rest to restore his body, before his desperate soul urged him on to Mount Horeb--a forty-day journey--to an encounter with God.  

God prescribed solitude and silence for Elijah's soul. 

When the prophet reached the Mountain of God he found shelter in a cave where he spent the night. I'm curious if Elijah's refuge might have been at the very "cleft of the rock" where God, centuries before, had revealed himself to Moses (Exodus 33:18-34:8). It seems natural to assume that Elijah, seeking a face-to-face with God, would look for God where Moses had found him.

And sure enough, God revealed himself to the weary prophet and offered him the invitation he was seeking: "Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord." There, "the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper."

The learning, I believe, is less about the voice with which God speaks and more about the space in which we hear him. A space of solitude and silence.

When we seek to escape the noise--the tumult from both within and without--and pray and listen meditatively to the word of God, we give the word opportunity to descend from the mind into the heart; in solitude and silence we distill and assimilate the word God speaks to us. The word becomes flesh in us, and we become the incarnate word of God.

Author Robert A. Jonas observes of the practice of solitude and silence, "Gradually we notice that our lives are becoming less chaotic...We notice that we are less anxious and fearful...We discover that the deep inner peace we sometimes feel in solitude is also present when we are with others" [Discernment, Christenson and Laird, p. xxii].  

There in the quiet of the mountain, far removed from the fireworks of Mount Carmel, Elijah had the opportunity to hear God.  

God asked Elijah to identify the source of his desolation. 

Elijah wrapped his face in his cloak and emerged from the cave. There God inquired, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:9-14). What a great, probing question! What do you think God was asking? What might God ask of you in the midst of the dark night of the soul? How might you reply? No, really. 

What circumstances tend to lead you into the dark night of the soul?

Even as Elijah emerged from the darkness of the cave, what might you learn from the prophet that will equip you to emerge from the dark night of the soul?

Solitude and silence are not, in themselves, transformative; rather, they create the space in which God effects transformation (2 Corinthians 3:18). James, the brother of Jesus--who knew something of relationship with God, admonished his readers, "Come close to God, and God will come close to you" (James 4:8). What might these words suggest around meeting God in solitude and silence?