Why do we have to experience a faltering of our faith? How can we avoid a dark night of the soul?
Why do we have to experience a faltering of our faith? To finally learn THE TRUTH! There is no god! From Epicurus: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
That's simple enough. How close are you to the light. If you take your focus off of Jesus and the plans He has for you the darker it gets. Stay close to the light and darkness won't be insurmountable. Isn't it amzing what a prayer can do. When it all seems hopeless it will pull you through.
I think it is to test how strong and steadfast our faith in our God is and to remind us always that we are not infallible, we need Someone to take us out of darkness and self-doubts. Only through regular and fervent prayers to our God can we remain in the light and no dark or evil force can penetrate such a strong shield.
A dark night of the soul is an experience where our felt-sense of God dries up and disappear. At the level of feeling, thought and imagination, we are unable to conjure up any sense of security or warm feelings of God in our lives. We should expect this in our lives; Jesus experienced dark nights of the soul. Just before he died on the cross he cried out in anguish, expressing feelings of being abandoned by God. But inside this seeming agnosticism, something beyond his feelings and imagination held him steady and enabled him to give himself over in trust to Someone whom he could no longer imagine existing. This wasn't doubt; it was real Faith. Faith begins exactly where atheism assumes it ends. Understood correctly, a dark night is not a failure in faith but a failure in our imagination. Have you read the memoirs of Mother Teresa? She too struggled painfully to feel God's presence in her life. She was an extraordinary woman, a spiritual athlete, someone who had given her entire freedom to God; might we not expect this to happen to her? Wouldn't you expect her to experience a dark night of the soul?
