“…faith is understood as the encounter of the whole person with God. And it is precisely the whole man that God desires to have before him. He wants for his Word the response of the whole man. God wants man not only with his intellect (which would, in any case, have to be sacrificed to a truth which is not self-evident), but, from the outset, also with his will; he wants man not only with his soul, but also and equally with his body.” (Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, Volume 1, p. 213)
Living faith is not simply mental consent to a set of propositions about God and man. Von Balthasar reminds us that we participate in this living faith with our whole and undivided person. Spiritual experience encompasses our whole life and may overwhelm us in ways we had not expected.
In the moment, it is not always clear what has happened. Sometimes in looking back, we learn by the grace of the Spirit and the wisdom of others.
When I went to college, I attended a Baptist church with a passionate Bible teacher in the pulpit. Sitting under his teaching felt like drinking cold water for my thirsty soul. During the four years that I spent in that church, I had a series of dramatic spiritual experiences that shaped the course of my life and my ministry. I experienced a season of joy, but I also experienced a season of unexplainable darkness and loss.
The initial spiritual experiences of joy grew out of college community. We were serving on mission in Clio, Michigan, and I encountered God in a way I had never expected. It resulted in joy, prayer and a deeper sense of His presence in my life.
18 months after that initial dramatic encounter in the fall of 1985, I sensed the Lord speak to me about serving in ministry. Essentially, I felt like he told me that my training would take years and I would learn something in suffering that I could not learn in a classroom. I was excited in spite of the dire warning.
One year later, the joy left, the light left, all sense of God’s presence disappeared, and I was plunged into an unspeakable darkness. It seemed like God had abandoned me, and I wasn’t sure if I believed anything anymore. This lasted for about a year, and I’ve experienced a similar darkness at two other times in my life. The darkness was so painful, it almost drove me to despair. But it also drove me into Scripture, into prayer and into naked trust.
In other words, it drove outside of myself and my feelings and anything I could claim as my experience. I believe now that the darkness was a gift driving me into the arms of Christ. Von Balthasar writes,
If experience—and we will return to this—even in a worldly sense is not a state but an event (and the very form of the word points to this with the prefix ex-), it follows that it is not man’s entry (Einfahren) into himself, into his best and highest possibilities, which can become an experience (Erfahrung), but, rather, it is his act of entering into the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who is naturally inaccessible to him, which becomes the experience that alone can claim for itself his undivided obedience. (p. 216)
My season of darkness was like a wound that broke my strength and made me vulnerable. I never fully recovered. From then on, I realized that even my faith is a gift of God’s grace. In the very place of brokenness and loss, I experienced an unexplainable love and joy. Deep joy. I realize now that both the times of joy and darkness were bound together. The Heavenly Father was drawing me, stirring me, calling me into His love.
Over time, I found pilgrims like Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Richard Wurmbrand, St. John of the Cross, Richard Foster, and others whose own stories pointed me back to God’s faithfulness. These past writers and the blessing of spiritual friends helped me to let go of my own experience, my own spirituality, my own glory and rest in the faithfulness of God.
Sometimes a spiritual director can direct us to other people who have walked a similar path, and help us discern God’s faithfulness and teach us to trust even when we don’t have complete understanding. For God is leading us to fullness of love by way of the cross.
Image by Sara (used by permission via Creative Commons).
July 15, 2014 at 11:07 am
Thx, Doug, for sharing a significant part of your Christian journey. We need more ministers who have gone through the dark to open up in the light to us like this. We re not alone! Ciao, C.