{"id":15991,"date":"2017-09-05T09:37:40","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T13:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=15991"},"modified":"2017-09-05T09:40:28","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T13:40:28","slug":"hope-in-the-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=15991","title":{"rendered":"Hope In the Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Hpe in the Darkness<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/two-kinds-of-darkness-2017-09-05\/\"><strong>Two Kinds of Darkness<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Tuesday, September 5, 2017<\/strong><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TkoPiKeFhvw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nTuesday, September 5, 2017<br \/>\nDarkness is a good and necessary teacher. It is not to be avoided, denied, run from, or explained away. First, like Ezekiel the prophet, we must eat the scroll that is \u201clamentation, wailing, and moaning\u201d in our belly, and only eventually becomes sweet as honey (see Ezekiel 2:9-10; 3:1-3).<br \/>\nBy the time most people reach middle age, they\u2019ve had days where life has lost its meaning, they no longer connect with an inner sense of motivation or joy. Sometimes this manifests as clinical depression and requires a therapist\u2019s skilled care and medication. But even if we don\u2019t experience depression, most of us go through a period of darkness, doubt, and malaise at some point in our lives.<br \/>\nThere\u2019s a darkness that we are led into by our own stupidity, sin (the illusion of separation), and selfishness (living out of the false self). We have to work our way out of this kind of darkness by brutal honesty, confession, surrender, forgiveness, apology, and restitution. It may feel simultaneously like dying and being liberated. We resist going through the darkness and facing our shadow, so we usually need help, as the Twelve Steps wisely identify. An accountability partner, spiritual director, or counselor can help us navigate this difficult, ego-humiliating process.<br \/>\nThere\u2019s another darkness that we\u2019re led into by God, grace, and the nature of life itself. In many ways, the loss of meaning, motivation, purpose, and direction might feel even greater here. The saints and mystics called it \u201cthe dark night of the soul.\u201d But even while we feel alone and that God has abandoned us, we sense that we have been led here intentionally. We know we are in \u201climinal space,\u201d betwixt and between, on the threshold\u2014and we have to stay here until we have learned something essential. It is still no fun and filled with doubt and \u201cdemons\u201d of every sort. But it is the darkness of being held closely by God without our awareness. This is where transformation happens.<br \/>\nThe darkness that we get ourselves into by our own \u201csinful\u201d choices can also become the darkness of God. Regardless of the cause, the dark night is an opportunity to look for and find God\u2014in different forms and ways than we\u2019ve become accustomed. Even if we don\u2019t feel like praying, staying committed to contemplative practice is particularly important.<br \/>\nSometimes it may be tempting to remain in the darkness\u2014it becomes familiar and we rebel against the light; the paralysis and self-pity has a strange attraction. We may feel an inner restlessness, as if we\u2019re aimlessly pacing back and forth on the same path. Allowing periods of this seemingly fruitless darkness may be part of deconstructing our false self so that we can rebuild on the foundation of our True Self. We must lose our old image of God and our old ways of experiencing God\u2019s presence to discover the absolute reality beneath all of our egoic fantasies and fears.<br \/>\nGateway to Silence:<br \/>\nThe night shines like the day.<\/p>\n<p>____________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oswald Chambers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Watching with Jesus <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Stay here and watch with Me. \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&amp;search=Matthew+26%3A38\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matthew 26:38<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"col-sm-4\">\n<p><!--\n\n\n<div class=\"mobile-sharing-button\"><\/div>\n\n\n--><\/p>\n<div class=\"top-sharing\">\u201cWatch with Me.\u201d Jesus was saying, in effect, \u201cWatch with no private point of view at all, but watch solely and entirely with Me.\u201d In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch <em>with<\/em> Jesus, we watch <em>for<\/em> Him. We do not watch with Him through the revealed truth of the Bible even in the circumstances of our own lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself through a particular \u201cGethsemane\u201d experience of our own. But we refuse to go, saying, \u201cNo, Lord, I can\u2019t see the meaning of this, and besides, it\u2019s very painful.\u201d And how can we possibly watch with Someone who is so incomprehensible? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we don\u2019t even know why He is suffering? We don\u2019t know how to watch with Him\u2014 we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they \u201call\u2026forsook Him and fled\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew+26:56\">Matthew 26:56<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were all filled with the Holy Spirit\u2026\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Acts+2:4\">Acts 2:4<\/a>). \u201cThey\u201d refers to the same people, but something wonderful has happened between these two events\u2014 our Lord\u2019s death, resurrection, and ascension\u2014 and the disciples have now been invaded and \u201cfilled with the Holy Spirit.\u201d Our Lord had said, \u201cYou shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you\u2026\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Acts+1:8\">Acts 1:8<\/a>). This meant that they learned to watch <em>with<\/em> Him the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hpe in the Darkness Two Kinds of Darkness Tuesday, September 5, 2017 Tuesday, September 5, 2017 Darkness is a good and necessary teacher. It is not to be avoided, denied, run from, or explained away. First, like Ezekiel the prophet, we must eat the scroll that is \u201clamentation, wailing, and moaning\u201d in our belly, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15991"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15991"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15995,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15991\/revisions\/15995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}