The Dark Night of the Soul

I wanted to share something else from my class. Some people refer to it as "the valley". A dark night can be likened to a photo in a dark room. It's a tidious and painful process but it's worth a beautiful photo in the end...... As we grow in character, we will periodically enter a season known as the "Dark night of the soul". It is also known as the wilderness or the vally and it seems as though it's a time when the heavens are like brass.

Hosea 2:14-15 (concerning the restoration of Israel)
"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness (a place of emptiness and temptation) and speak kindly to her. Then I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor (a place of desperation) as a door of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

The dark night can best be described as a time of God changing EVERYTHING in and about us.
The amount of time that we spend in the dark night of the soul is determined by our soul's level of willingness to cooperate with the adjustments and changes the Holy Spirit wants to make.

It can seem that during this time God is concealing Himself. We seek God our because He is hiding himself. The purpose of concealment is to induce us to search for Him so that He may then reveal Himself. It causes us to greater appreciate Him.

1 Chronicles 28:9 "And you, my son Soloman, know the God of your father, and serve him with single mind and willing heart; for the Lord searches every mind, and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will abandon you forever.

Dark nights bring to death in our soul all fleshly works, striving and selfish ambitions so that whatever we do is by the Holy Spirit working in us.

Hebrews 4:9-10 "There remains therefore rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His"

Dark nights secure is us the knowledge that God is supporting us.

History is the battleground for control of people's minds.

Dark nights - we receive a heavenly perspective about our earthly situation and learn to stop reacting out of our selfish/soulish mind, will, and emotions. We are outside of the enemy's grasp when we are resting quietly and gently in the Father's arms.

God works in hidden ways to unclog filters that stop the Holy Spirit from flowing through us - when we are stretched - the clogs fall out of the filters.

The dark night was compared to the Velveteen Rabbit to me. The story of a rabbit that was well worn and much loved. He didn't see himself that way and he went through such a dark time of hurting b.c. the boy was so sick and the rabbit had disease on him. He thought that he would be burned and his ashes tossed. However what he didn't see was that during his dark night - he was diseased b.c. the boy loved the bunny so much that he would let him out of his arms. It was that dedication and love from the boy that turned the toy into a real rabbit.

The PEACE of God is the potting soil for Revelation.