Dr Paul Allen

When my daughter Eliana was 6 years old, I wrote her a lullaby that included these words: You, Eliana, remind me each day That God does answer the prayers that we pray. And though the night falls and we cannot see, He will bring light when the time’s right for you and me. These four lines are packed with profound meaning for me. I rarely can sing them without tears. They refer to an extended season of what Christians call spiritual darkness, a dark night of the soul, or a faith crisis, which I experienced the year before Eliana was born. Since I told this story in some detail a number of years ago, I won’t recount it all here. I do, however, want to recount the moment God brought light into my night because it was a transformational moment when I experienced the biblical truth David describes in Psalm 139: If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,      and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you;      the night is bright as t...

  GOD SPEAKS IN THE DARKNESS The moonlight spilled over the room’s edges through the large windows on the south side. I could see his body lying still, yet attentive, as I slipped through the bedroom door. The light outlined his small form on the pillow, and a foot peeked out from under the sheet. He was waiting again, more patiently than most eleven-year-olds, because waiting is his life. Waiting to hear the creaking of the stiff door hinges, waiting for the sound of feet coming near, waiting to hear the bedrail creak indicating presence. My slippers shuffled noiselessly along the wooden floor; at his bed, I leaned forward and felt his warm breath on my cheek. So near, yet his eyes still wide and waiting—no recognition greeted me, just the same wondering and expectant expression. I have done this a thousand times, but still, he does not know my face. His eyes could not pick his mother out in a crowd. I broke the silence with a hoarse whisper: “Son, it’s Mom. I’m here.” His head je...

When believers enter “the dark night of the soul,” those times when God’s mysterious will, worked out through difficult providence, makes the Lord appear veiled and unapproachable, what should they do? As we look at Scripture, one conclusion is apparent. They should sing. The biblical testimony is that God provides “songs in the night”—lyrics to bring to Him in times of great heart distress. We would not, at first thought, naturally reason that a time of struggle, suffering, or pain is also a time for singing, especially when God seems absent and hidden. It can almost seem cruel to suggest that a hurting, disillusioned soul should sing. Crying, wondering, and groaning seem more fitting. But singing? Is not lifting our voice in song for happy times? Certainly, but singing is also for trying times. Indeed, perhaps especially so. Christian songwriter Michael Card has noted that in the book of Psalms, sixty-five of the 150 songs found there, or more than 40 percent, contain lamentations. A...

The dark night of the soul. This phenomenon describes a malady that the greatest of Christians have suffered from time to time. It was the malady that provoked David to soak his pillow with tears. It was the malady that earned for Jeremiah the sobriquet, "The Weeping Prophet." It was the malady that so afflicted Martin Luther that his melancholy threatened to destroy him. This is no ordinary fit of depression, but it is a depression that is linked to a crisis of faith, a crisis that comes when one senses the absence of God or gives rise to a feeling of abandonment by Him. Spiritual depression is real and can be acute. We ask how a person of faith could experience such spiritual lows, but whatever provokes it does not take away from its reality. Our faith is not constant action. It is mobile. It vacillates. We move from faith to faith, and in between, we may have periods of doubt when we cry, "Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief." We may also think that...