The Dark

There's not being able to feel God's presence when we seek it and there's pushing His presence away when it becomes uncomfortable.  In both experiences, I believe His presence remains; it's simply a matter of how open we are or at times, maybe, God allowing us to sit in the dark.

I think, for me, sometimes (often) avoiding this blog is a way of avoiding God.  And the more I avoid the more I avoid. Meaning, like with any good habit, consistency is required.  For example, if I'm doing yoga every day, I tend to want to do yoga every day but if I take a few days off I easily forget the benefits and it's that much harder to resume.

My devotions led me to the book of Job this morning.  I don't know about you, but I don't find Job to be the most feel-good book in the Bible. I sort of inwardly groan when I "have" to read it.  This morning I read Job's words: "I am not silenced by the darkness..." Job 23:17 AMP.  And he wasn't. He cried out.  He said, if given the opportunity, he would complain before God--which in essence meant he was complaining before God and his laments were recorded.

I, on the other hand, very much want to clam up when life gets dark. I want to retreat.

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote,

"Everything is gestation and then bringing forth.  To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist's life: in understanding as in creating."

Patience is not one of my strengths. Rather than sitting in the dark and waiting on clarity, I'll turn on every man-made light I can find.  Sitting in the dark sounds about as much fun as sitting in my feelings...and, I guess, is pretty much the same thing.  I will avoid that dark like the plague which often means I am inadvertently avoiding God's presence.  I want His presence manifest in cozy ways; in bright, cheery ways.  So, when Rainer writes, "Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree..." I'm struck because I'm a reckoner; a counter. I like to  keep tabs, calculate, shine my own false light of examination on anything and everything and figure it all out. This is, first of all, working under the illusion that I'm in control but secondly, it's a means to avoid God's voice, His presence, His direction perhaps.  I'm afraid of the dark.  I'm afraid of what God might say to me there.  But what I'm also missing out on by avoiding sitting there is His comfort, His peace that surpasses all understanding.

Pain is unavoidable.  The dark is unavoidable.  God's presence really isn't.  I might as well invite His presence in when I'm forced to sit in the dark.