look backward child

Looking backward is foolish if it is meant to boast. But it can be useful, too. At times it is all a Christian may have. Remembering how God has taken us through is a great source of encouragement.

There is a phrase for a time in our walk where God seems to disappear. They call it "The Dark Night of the Soul." The dark night of the soul refers to a dryness as simple as a spiritual discipline not returning the product it once did, or it may more seriously signal a sever altogether of the effectual presence of God.

In November of 2005 I had a miscarriage, and I wrote a few posts in regard to it. While gaining my senses I looked backward and remembered what I had said to God. I remembered that He was leading me. I chronicled my remembrances in two posts.

On November 23, 2005 I wrote in a blog entry:

Before the turn of the year 2005, I read a book I already recently quoted called "A Path Through Suffering" by Elizabeth Elliot. Not that any book should create in anyone a following and a devotion in likeness to scripture; however, at the end of her life, which was victoriously walked in intimacy to Christ, she simply has the wisdom to put the pieces together. Why should I not try and glean, to listen, to sit at her feet and absorb what she gained at a price??

This book was able to inspire me with an all-consuming love and trust for Christ. It was so inspiring that I was able to say to the Lord back then a year ago, "Lord, I am ready to go anywhere you want. No matter what that may look like. Would you let me suffer for Christ?"

And now everyone I imagine is thinking it is time to commit me to a mental facility. It sounds crazy. But you should have seen the love and peace I saw through the illumination of that path....

Then following day I wrote in a post what I prayed for my future:

And you will not believe what I happily prayed to God at some moment in it: "God, I am ready to sacrifice more. Anything you want, Lord, you can have it."

And that is when the trouble came. I suffered nothing more again in likeness to a miscarriage outwardly in my life, but inwardly all I could explain to others was that my God had "pulled the rug out from underneath me." This was a dark night of the soul in my life.

September 14, 2006

I have some bad news. I really honestly can't see my way out of this cyclic spin I'm in. It's too far out of my grasp to deliver myself. I am truly stuck. Does God ever decide to pull out the rug on someone? I know that sounds harsh. But, come to think of it, it feels harsh.

January 24, 2007

But I'm not interested in what I ought to be. All I can think about, is anything else. I rarely make myself behold a panoramic view of where I should be and where I have taken to. To do that feels like a knife twisting and turning inside. Still, I cannot believe myself. I haven't given up hope. I keep waiting for God to change me. I don't know how to help myself. I am beginning to wonder if someone else has to help me.

January 31, 2007

It's so bad that a couple nights ago I said to myself, "Can I just... not be a Christian anymore? Say that I don't believe in God?" It's only the people I love and the truth that is a message of hope which makes me try and fight and believe that maybe I too, can be redeemed.

February 5, 2007, on the eve of the birth of my third child

What had been is gone. Finally, I am able to look at babies, and remember why they are so delightful. Wow, it's like I've awaken. I don't know why I'm better. All I think is, thank you God, and please, please don't leave me now, old self. Stay.

March 30, 2007, the darkness didn't lift after having healed as a mother

I have to find a way to be a Christian. I don't know where to start, but, I know that's where I've decided to go. I think I've seen this before. I had to make a difficult choice. Still, I don't know how to reach around the pain to grasp faith. I don't have any ideas. I have complete lack of confidence that I will walk away from this post and be any better at closing the disconnect. At least at this juncture I'm open to the potential. I have to, and I am willing, to offer at least that small hope.

May 16, 2007, relating to Jesus' request to let this cup of suffering pass by Him

The account of Jesus in the garden before his arrest is a fulfillment of prophecy in Psalm 88:8....

"You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape."

Finally in October of 2007, maybe I was beginning to hear His voice on occasion, just a little bit. This was such a great post of release and conclusion. In full it said:

Can you hear the song tuning in clear, and pick up the melody and sing along with all your heart? I can hear it now and I don't hold back.

So? Life has troubles, and now it's becoming obvious that they don't stop... therefore what needs to change is me. If I don't learn to live right now then I won't ever be able to sing along with the song that someone is playing for Him. Life's always been lived in moments, present-tense; but because of my immaturity all I was was tense in the present.

I have been aware that I need to let go for some time and I still am at a loss, several experiments later, as to how to do that--how to focus the soul's passions toward the exterior--but even that I'm not going to worry about.

I suppose it is natural to forget where you are with God. How cool it is to rediscover, as it comes spilling out of your mouth, your origin-stories of trust in Him as you happen onto it in conversation.

I remember how I used to be long ago. Do you? So frequently the right word at the right time for the right need, I felt like I had one ear in heaven, and my joy, in everything I did, was so full in the promises of God. How I miss that easy-access to learning at his feet; somehow I had that privilege before and I know it was wonderful. I am looking for my old-self, I wanna go back to the way it was, yeah. I've been waiting for some time but there is "no normal" -- God's voice keeps to a warp and a muffle before it trickles down from the sky -- yet, I am at peace finally. When all other lights go out, the past illuminates that the straight and narrow is, as ever was, before me.

There is abundant joy backing me up from the rear and mist and fog in arm's reach ahead. Somebody ought best to twist me around and have me start walking backward.

Faith is not easy to put into practice. But I like grace, which is the present-tense capture of its essence. I like how simple it is. It deals with the difficulties of the moment until the moment is gone. And then it sings a song that floats on the evening breeze.

Walking forward while looking backward. This is the reason why I wrote this post. The LORD commanded us to "remember" Him by taking the sacraments. The Patriarchs of our faith built altars and pillars to remember and memorialize what the LORD had accomplished. To boast would be one thing. But when life gets a little dark, sometimes the only thing left to keep you steady is looking back over where you've already been.

I realize that the "Dark Night of the Soul" is mystical and some people think it flat-out nonsense. That's okay. To defend it scripturally I could site how the prophet Elijah had a great spiritual high followed by a depression. And Peter had passion for Jesus that led him to immaturely say "even if all others fall away, I won't." And I see Moses, as a young man being told who God was and that he belonged to God's people, but it wasn't till he was an old man that God personally gave him a testimony of it. I wrote a post recently asking if perhaps John the Baptist might have "lost his salvation" because in a dark prison he doubled-back and doubted who Jesus was.

LORD, I love you, and I know what you have done for me. I've been busy lately. But when I heard this song, I realized everything at once. You were always there. And I need to say it. You were always... there.

that I may gain Christ

Today I had two investments in quiet time that brought me to the same place.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the various ways I have suffered for Christ. Paul listed them once. I too have even been physically harmed several times because I would not renounce Jesus as the only Way to God. So, I thought it might be interesting to see what other things I might have in common with his list. It simply reminds me what I already know and have traveled well: how can the glimmers of this world interfere with my sanctification when I have been built up in Christ to surrender so much?

Sometimes I ask this question then regret I said it, as if I am requiring God to prove to me my weakness. I find this both encouraging and defeating all at once.

But I remembered that Paul said it was foolish to list his sufferings for Christ.

Then also, earlier in the day I pulled out the 24-page paper I wrote for my Wednesday morning bible study leaders. The woman who created our study, hand-wrote some additional comments to me in the margins when she gave the paper back. I hadn't read them till this morning. To Philippians 3:7-8 (the famous passage "that I may gain Christ") she wrote in the side:

Paul may here have been referring to his past as a prominent Jewish scholar, etc. [But as I think more of your point,] this is an interesting new insight to me in regards to this passage.

Which was pretty cool. My point from that passage had been:

Paul couldn't call righteous at this time the activities he once did in his life. Some things that had been righteous because they required faith, had eventually become sin because it became routine, not inspired and founded by faith! Routine doesn't require faith, does it?

There are two passages where Paul looks back on serving Christ, and boasts. Philippians 3:3-17-

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.

The other passage of boasting is 2 Corinthians 11:21-33 and into chapter 12, verses 1-11 -

What anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying. In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.

I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say.

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the "super-apostles," even though I am nothing.

For Paul there are two categories of boast. One is his flesh, and the other his appointed sufferings for Christ. Paul boasts of his natural human position and privileges, which he forsook once saved. And I think he also ongoingly-forsakes the boast of suffering for Christ to advance the gospel. All of it is attributed under the category of "garbage."

Paul can boast, but it is foolish, it is not mature.

It's garbage. In comparison. Why? Just imagine if the Christian you knew didn't need to persist on today, in living by the power of God? What if he only wanted to talk about the accomplishments of the past like an excuse to be done? But that's not God's will.

In God's perspective, that list of Christian service "gains nothing" (2 Cor. 12:1).

I am incredibly encouraged by reading on in Chapter 12 and 13 of 2 Corinthians. Paul gives an alternate method to measure Christ's glory in his life!! He measures the magnitude of accomplishment by what he is doing right now.

2 Corinthians 13:3-9 -

...since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you. For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.

Now I pray to God that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. And this also we pray, that you may be made complete.

Suffering for Christ is proved not by a list from my past, but by the power of God in me today.