Nov 8
The Dark Night of the Soul (part II)
The Dark Night of the Soul is the progression from exterior to interior spiritual impact and that spells change. It is for this precise reason God has ‘wooed’ you here. You have now transitioned from the Outercourt into the covering of the first room of the Sanctuary, the Holy Place. The exterior life is much easier to control than the interior as it is always easier to sacrifice food (fasting) for a day or a week, than to discipline the thoughts, feelings, and will of the soul for the rest of your life.
LETTING GO OF AGENDAS
That is why this room is so important – it is the beginning of the formation of new spiritual habits, conditioned responses, and higher thought processes. It is here you will learn to let go of your agendas that have been constructed from errant perceptions. Those perceptions form your thoughts, those thoughts form your choices, and the choices you have made are the reason for the pain you have deep in the recesses of your heart. Pain that no one but you know about and you may have ignored the pain for so long that you no longer notice it is there – until it is gone. So, in effect, this room is a room for pain removal and you will struggle to keep from running out the screen behind you.
THE PAIN WE PROTECT
Some of you see this pain as a friend – it gets you the attention you need from others, and the thought of losing that attention can be frightening. To you, losing the attention of others means being alone and that seems unbearable. Still this is another lesson you must learn – to the degree you feel alone is the degree you depend on others for your satisfaction, value, and self worth. Here, in this lonely place, God removes your dependency on others to woo you to depend on Him. That is why He only brings one person at a time into this room – here you have to depend on His love to make it. When other loves and distractions are gone you will be able to feel how much He deeply loves you. You can only learn this to the degree you trust Him to heal you where it hurts. He does this by going deep into those inner recesses that you have allowed no one to see let alone touch.
Entering into this room is the only way to learn to hear, think, and have passion for the matters that are on God’s heart – His plans, His desires, His purposes. There are no shortcuts.
EXPECT DISORIENTATION
If you have some disorientation as you enter this room do not be alarmed, it has a certain spiritual swirl that may catch you off guard. You will often feel you have lost your balance in life and are groping to find God. This groping is precisely the inherent meaning of learning to live and move and have our being in Him (Acts 17:27-28). In the darkened, disorienting swirl of this first room you will struggle to know ‘right’ from ‘wrong’ because your values and life principle are being renovated. Soon you will discover that what you used to get away with when you were first saved is no longer permissible in the Holy Rooms of Mystery. The resulting disorientation is the only way for you lose your old patterns of behavior, your old ways of thinking, and your own agenda. If you do not lose these “old ways” you will go right back to doing what you did before you came into the Holy atmosphere of this room. Time in the Dark Night of the Soul is the only antidote to the multifaceted, conditioned behavior of the sin you may have grown accustomed to.
LEARNING WHY YOU WERE MADE LIKE YOU ARE
It is here in The Dark Night of the Soul that you will learn to follow the call of God on your life and leave behind what you thought you were called, designed, and purposed to do. The gifts, the abilities, the personality, even the way you smile affect others and God’s wonderful design of you will start becoming clearer. You learn that all the abilities that God has given you are for a reason - you’re just not using them correctly. As you proceed to the furniture in this room, you will actually learn to appreciate the Dark Night of the Soul and all it is doing in your life. Shortly, you will see that you have now entered into God, later you will learn how to let God dwell in you.
More on the Dark Night of the Soul in my next Post.
Blessings,
John Paul
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A few years ago I had a terrible bout of VERTIGO, for no known apparent reason. I had collapsed right inside my door and phoned for help, no one came until 3 or 4 hours later and I had no idea what was happening. I repented, I cried, I begged God to help and tell me what ‘i did wrong’ that allowed that to happen.
‘prayer ministers and prophets’ came and broke off what they thought was witchcraft, and yet the situation grew more swirling… when all the chaotic folks had left, all I could do hour after hour was listen for the spirit (as i couldn’t even goto the bathroom without help)
Father said to me ‘I am taking you into ways you do not understand right now, and places you have no comprehension. You feel the vertigo because your body is not used to this”
John Paul you wrote “If you have some disorientation as you enter this room do not be alarmed, it has a certain spiritual swirl that may catch you off guard. You will often feel you have lost your balance in life and are groping to find God. ”
It was during that time, that the physical manifestation on my body was reflecting the spiritual journey I was on. Years later, I can see just how strategic those few weeks of vertigo were, and how important they would be in being a sign post of major change in my life.
All I can say for those on the journey is this: HAVE NO FEAR, GOD IS HERE.
blessings, Will
John Paul:
Thank-you for the fresh insights in this posting. I am growing right along. I have been going through a test of integrity this past month regarding a particular piece of furniture that the Lord wanted to transform deep within me. It had something to do with establishing healthy boundaries with a colleague through prayer and then being able to verbalize it on the job where
environmental/physical accountability measures was practically non-existent and the solution was only a prayer away.
I was placed in a situation by my job that if I made the wrong move in my inner man even in the thinking realm by dwelling on certain thoughts, it could open up doors that have no business being opened. That was what the Lord taught me in this 30 day test.
This was a 30 day test and I cooperated with the Lord and passed with flying colors.
Praying on the spot through the situation was the tool that God gave me to use as a way to get a directive and a strategy from heaven regarding the situation. Now, I have noticed a change for the better in my prayer life. I believe i received, new wine skins for a greater intercessory prayer life.
Because I have passed this test, I feel confident that the Lord is now able to trust me with other things that are yet to be revealed in His timing regarding future events in my life that are apart of my destiny. Thank’s for all that you are doing for the Kingdom!
Blessings Always,
Shirley C.
John Paul I just wanted to thank you so much for being faithful to write this blog. When I open up your latest blog it always puts a finger on a thoughts or feelings in my immediate experience.I now recognize the “madness” I have been feeling as the disorientation you describe & the groping to find God my call for Him not to let me go because it feels as though my “holding” to Him is slipping like one hand slipping from another. I know He won’t but in the disorientation it feels possible. God is teaching me to live above the realm of feelings & in the reality of His Truth, nothing can separate us from His awesome love.
Wow, this is exactly what I needed to hear today.
I was literally crying out to God, admitting the pain & loneliness I feel. My intial response is to go and be with people or ring someone, to relieve the pain & take my mind off the deep, empty feeling. But, today, I felt I needed to just live it out, to admit to God how I honestly feel & how painful it is. To not reach out for help from others, but to run to Father God….
John Paul, I was led to reading your blog again today & EVERYTHING in your recent entry has brought much revelation as to what is happening & most importantly how I can work with God through this all. I needed to read this….
Thank you & God Bless you!
Kiran : )
Selah.
Amen.
Amen.
The crushing was very intense - felt like I was being obliterated some nights - like even the concept of self was being unraveled…
It is well worth it of course, to be able to move with Him utimatley, the creator of the universe, without getting burnt to a cinder ! WOW, GO LORD !
John Paul:
It is now the next day after my initial response to this post. I want to say that something is accelerating on a spiritual level deep inside of me. Upon awakening from my sleep this morning being, Sunday morning, on the Lords day,I was giving this quick dream. I was in the parking of a shopping center somewhere and was parking the car as I looked up I was observing a cloud formation in the sky. They can only be described as geometrical striations equidistantly spaced in a dome like fashion, I kept asking everyone around me if they see what I am seeing because it was overwhelming to me in the dream, some of them saw it but was afraid. However, I was not afraid of this seen and then all of a sudden it there appeared a canopy cloud formation over the dome like configuration and now it feels like I am under a tent but it was coming from heaven.
I woke up from this dream and thought it was odd at first and then I asked the Lord what is the spiritual significance for me in this dream and He told me that He is expanding my tent pegs. In the dream, this tent just kept getting bigger, higher, longer and wider and there was no telling of where it would end.
There is a deeper sense of growth happening in my life since I have been coming to your blogs. I cannot believe that I been responding to your blogs for just about a year. It will be a year in December. Wow! God has done so much in my life in a years time. Its amazing! Thank you John Paul!
In His Unwavering Love,
Shirley C.
I have found in this place that the removal of the attention of loved ones has also caused me to weigh their expectations of my gifts and callings against what the Lord is showing me. The burden of their expectations of me is lifting. As I let go of who others think I am and accept who He says I am, the pain of this time alone abates. In fact, I cannot be as alone as I desire. I am constantly surrounded by people who think they know me when I just want to be alone with Him who truly knows me. I am, however, looking forward to the restoration of my relationships when this period of time is over. I know that I will become a better wife, mother, daughter, friend the further into this journey I travel.
“it has a certain spiritual swirl that may catch you off guard.”
hahahaha! I love this phrase, but it is definitely an understatement. It feels more like a whirlwind! Best to just lay low, so you don’t fall flat!
Be it love, faith, knowledge, righteousness, patience, peace etc… we are constantly being renewed in our inner man daily, hence a spiritual swirl by the renovating of our lives.
Yet life is sum up in the simplicity of devotion to Christ, as He said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Love is the bond of perfection. We keep ourselves in the right paths by staying to it. Be it in the heart, our actions and thoughts.
John Paul mentions about purpose in life in this blog. If we don’t get the foundation of love correctly, we may hit on a trail of pursuing character, ministry, opportunities, knowledge, rewards etc.. outside the perfect will of God. In some ways we justify ourselves for our ‘righteousness’. But in truth we have fail the Lord. Our chief purpose is to do God’s will not build our own empires. This is my opinion on purpose.
Grace and peace to those who’ve blogged before. Jesus is so accepting…i’ve been a spoiled in HIS love ABBA child for the past 25 years. about spirtual darkness, is it not his love which ignites our souls in tough places?
it’s late/early on 11/11/08, had a 3 am sleep disturbance.
paix in Iseu
Thank you John Paul for your encouraging words which give hope to those of us who may be going through the dark night of the soul, or at least that is where I believe I am at.
Those who kept me secure in my faith have been literally removed from my life, and I find myself totally depending on God and His love. Having said that, the anointing and the ability to see the unseen also seems to have gone, so I wait here trusting that God will reveal his will for my life once more just like He did before. But his silence is almost unbearable.
The problem is where I felt He was taking me before in terms of ministry has completely been pulled from under my feet and I no longer clearly know what I am meant to be doing; how I am meant to be serving.
Looking forward to your next post.
Blessings,
ransom33 @ http://www.ransom33.wordpress.com
“You will often feel you have lost your balance in life and are groping to find God.”
Perhaps nothing so adequately describes in one sentence my experience in the last couple of years. I feel that I’ve not just lost balance but also the balance beam. I’ve not just fallen but also broken all the preconceived ideas of what my life would be. There is no point in splinting broken bones and running the race I knew before. In this place of darkness I’m struggling for the vision of who I am supposed to be rather than who I thought I was. The old vision is utterly destroyed.
Perhaps, the wounds take so long to heal to keep me in this place long enough to develop the sight and hearing to know God. Even as I type I suddenly realize that perhaps the wounds were never even made by God but by the enemy and the results of living in a fallen world. Perhaps, my perception of this pain was incorrect and I am instead experiencing the pain of healing?
Well, I wax poetic. Perhaps it is true, and perhaps it is not. I did have a dream early this year that you (John Paul Jackson) said it was time for me to begin to learn my calling and purpose. That certainly seems to be what is going on here. Woo Hoo!
One of Those
Recently I have come to the realization that I have been in denial about certain issues in my life. Only within the last several weeks have I finally come to grips with this. My question is how do I deal with other issues that I have been in denial about? Yet, have been unable to see them so that I can acknowledge they exist. The troubling thing is, I know that they are there but right now I cannot identify them.
I looked up the definition of denial and here is what I found. Denial is: an unconscious defense mechanism used to reduce anxiety by denying, thoughts, feelings or facts that are consciously intolerable.
Thank you so much for sharing, John Paul. You give me courage to go on.
It is so good to have a place and space where one can further develop correctly in a fuller way. It feels so at home and it feels that we are allowed to live again even if we are a bit different. I never liked different when I was younger, but today I appreciate it because I see how different is good…and how good different is…
Thank you John Paul for helping me feel at home on this planet, even without being of it…God has given you such a wonderful assignment…
Since I have come to this blog, started taking the 101 correspondence course a few weeks ago, and come a bit closer to Streams, sometimes it feels like I’m in the X-Man mansion…this image comes to me regularly…
Thank you again, and God Bless!
Dear father John Paul,
You are such an inspiration and example. Thanks!
Anyway, there is a slight mistake in your blog on the Dark Night of the Soul of 8 November: Romans 17:27-28 should be Acts 17:27-28. Thought to help out get the verse right, there is no Romans 17 in the Bible at all …
Blessings to you and all at Streams, it’s a joy and helpful to have you in the Body of Christ. Amazing.
Stef
What does it look like to remove our dependancy on others? Is that something God does or that we have to do in a lengthy time of isolation?
I want to be willing to let go of the pain I’ve been protecting, but it is like a recent revelation I’ve had of one of my earliest childhood memories. I asked my parents about it this morning for clarification. It turns out that when I was about 5, I witnessed a huge German Shepherd that lost a fight against a porcupine and had quills all over its’ snout and inside it’s mouth. The dog, otherwise loving and gentle was responding from a place of deep pain, and what that looked like was ferocity and anger. The external quills were removed more easily, but the ones inside the dogs mouth were too painful to extricate without first numbing the area with a local anesthetic. My mother, an RN, not a vet, administered the needle and herself graciously and tenderly removed the internal quills from the mouth of the dog.
I want the internal quills (in fact all the quills) gone for good, but I perhaps have been waiting for the local to be administered first. And, anyone who gets deep enough inside my soul touches those old wounds that I didn’t even know were there until they were again aggravated. As much as I don’t want to protect the pain, I still react to it, and react badly without even knowing why.
Jesus, I need your help. And grant me peace and patience to take the time I need to get it right this time around.