Faith in the Night…

I will blog more about the personal side of this for me soon perhaps. For now, here are a few quotes from Nancy Missler about having faith in the night seasons. I have had several conversations with friends lately about this type of season so I wanted to post this information here and open up the conversation a bit.

I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye sees Thee…. (Job 42:5 NAS)

God allows these “night seasons” into our lives for the purpose of bringing us into an intimacy with Him that we have never before known. As Job said, “I [had] heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth [intimately knows] Thee.” (Job 42:5) Night seasons are not just a dry time or a temporary trial, but a “Father-filtered” period of time where God leads us away from depending upon our “self” to depending entirely upon Him. It’s a time where He lovingly removes all our natural and comfortable support systems in order to replace them with a total and unshakable trust (and faith) in Him.

The thing that makes a “night season” so unique and so different from other trials, is that heaven “seems” silent. No matter how much we pray, read the Word or fellowship with other believers, God does not “seem” to communicate with us as He once did. It’s a time where we don’t hear Him, see Him or feel Him as we used to. In other words, it’s a series of trials where we “feel” that God has left us or abandoned us. Thus, we are completely confused and “in the dark” as to what is happening. Night seasons are simply Father-filtered periods of time where God teaches us by depriving us of our natural “light” (our own seeing, feeling and understanding) in order to forge “pure faith.” It’s time where God instructs us by “darkening” us. Thus, the term “night season” (or “dark night”) is a very appropriate title. It’s a time where God trains us to walk by naked faith – a faith that rests in Christ alone, not in our feelings, our sight or our experience. Most of us, even as older Christians, still walk by these things.

As David relates in Acts 2:25, “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is on my right hand, that I should not be moved.”

Don’t read any further unless you are longing, as I am, to see “the Lord always before [your] face” because this way of faith is not easy. It will confound your logic, destroy your schedules, annihilate your religious attitudes, frustrate your patience and probably alienate some of your acquaintances. It’s certainly not the kind of faith the world teaches. It’s not even the kind of faith that some churches teach. This kind of faith demands all from us and requires great love for God. But, by learning to have faith in the night seasons, we will be headed for the summit of Life where we shall “see” our Beloved face to face.

If we can see our circumstances as sent directly from God in order to accomplish His will, then we can, at least, receive them as part of His plan and remain at rest in them. If, however, we don’t understand what God’s will is, especially in our night seasons, we’ll get wiped out even before we begin.

Remember, He doesn’t ask us to understand everything that He is doing, but simply to trust and believe in His Love through what He is doing.

You can read more here… http://www.khouse.org/articles_cat/1999/nanscorner/faithinthenightseasons/