recognizing our darkness

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be stripped of everything . . . except God?  I read once of a Chinese pastor who was thrown in jail and was not allowed to see anyone or read anything. He was not allowed to have or read his most treasured possession, the Bible.  But that became the most transformative time  of his life.  He discovered that his relationship to God grew in new ways that had never occurred before.  In a sense, the Bible itself had become a barrier between himself and God.  Once that was taken away he was left with nothing else - just him and God.  Scary at first. Downright terrifying, in fact, to be so alone, in blackness.  In your head you know there's a God, and that He's with you.  But how do you relate to someone you can't see or touch or relate to as you would another human?

Growing up in a Christian home I was taught the importance of having a "daily quiet time", a time set apart for Bible study and prayer every day. Throughout my early years in life I was quite faithful at doing this.  But by the time I was in college I started losing interest because I recognized that this had become too much of an empty ritual.  At times I would gain some refreshment from it, but that seemed to be happening less and less.  Something was wrong.  So I quit, and I haven't practiced a "daily quiet time" ever since (gasp!).

What was wrong?  I've pondered this quite a bit over the years.  One conclusion I've come to is that I wish prayer would have been emphasized over Bible study.  I think the reason that Bible study becomes so much of an emphasis is because it is something tangible that we can hang on to with our minds.  The problem with this is that our relationship with God becomes a mental exercise instead of a truly spiritual one (I'm generalizing, of course).  I would never advocate getting rid of our Bibles or our study of it.  But I do think that it's a good idea to emphasize prayer ahead of study.  When I did this I discovered how underdeveloped this part of me was, and still is.  To let go of a purely intellectual relationship with God (which is what Bible study tends to promote) and seek a more spirit-to-spirit relationship has been the hardest thing I've ever done.  It is definitely leaving one's comfort zone (a well-lit place) and entering into a kind of darkness (unknown and undefined).  Does this seem strange?  If "God is light", why should it seem dark to move in his direction?

I think the answer has to do with the difference between God's light and the light of our own making. And the two may not be easy to distinguish.  There are times when we know without a question that God's light has pierced our darkness.  We experience his joy, his love, etc.  But instead of cultivating the relationship we tend to want to hang on to that wonderful experience and keep duplicating it.  A subtle shift happens whereby the focus changes from actually loving Him to loving those things that were instrumental in bringing us to Him.  Before we know it He has taken a turn in another direction and we are still going down the road we assume He is still on (like the time it took Jesus' parents three days to notice that he was no longer with them on their journey home from Jerusalem!)

"You diligently study the Scriptures." Jesus said to the Pharisees, "because you think that by them you possess eternal life. . . yet you refuse to come to me to have life" (Jn. 5:39-40).