There is nothing sadder than a Christian fellowship where every song must be of victory, every prayer full of faith, every member always smiling and joyful. It is an exhausting pretence to keep up for long, and it condemns those who cannot hide from their fears to further pain of failure and inadequacy. It is actually dishonest. It means that we can never offer our tears as well as our smiles, our questions as well as our certainties, our wounds as well as our victories. It means that we are always keeping Christ out of the very places in our lives where we need him most - the place of our darkness, uncertainties, and fears. It also means in practice that we will keep talking and chattering to avoid silence. As we have already seen, silence has a way of insisting upon truth.
- David Runcorn, A Center of Quiet; Hearing God When Life Is Noisy
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Yeah, I'm one of those people that have always found a deep well of spirituality in the "Dark night of the soul" experience. Is the glory of the resurrection the same, without the agony in the garden? Or to be more personal, arent the tears of sorrow, of repentence, of pain, sprinkled with the very salt, that perhaps Jesus was refering to, when he said, "What good is salt, if it has lost its savour? Its good for the dunghill." What good are crockidile tears, fake tears that dont have the "salt" of real tears? If we are to have a truly redemptive repentive cry, for our various sins known and unknown, our sadness for the loss of our spiritual oppotunities, and oppotunities to help others, has to be REAL. This sadness, either as compassion, or as repentence, or as personal pain and loss, in many ways opens up our ability to see deeper into the pain of the cross. People are chicken when it comes to pain. Physical pain, go for the painkillers, emotional pain, go for the antidepressants. Maybe we have to have the pain, to feel the pleasure of the Kingdom of heaven within, where the comforter is THE painkiller. I dont think I could take just sadness, darkness and detachment from the glory of God either. Too much salt, ruins the dish as well. If we submit to Gods will, its a give and take, with some times of great happiness, and connection with the Spirit. Other times, we are hanging on our personal crosses, saying, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Is there a sadder moment than that? No some people want to live in the sort of plastic place, where we are always JOYOUS CHRISTIANS. I think that might end up making us lukewarm, and without salt. Tasteless, bland. I know that Jesus said to us, IF IT HAPPENED TO ME, IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU TOO. And his life was filled with pain, before the glory. If your faith in God is strong, and your Love of God is deep, then any pain you have, could feel as tho God has abandoned you. (tho God never does.) But with Faith, hope and love, you will never abandon God. And those tests, are the ones that make us grow. I hope people learn to take the good with the bad.
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