Dark Nights of the Soul, and Why I Envy Nightingales and Satellites

The soul is a strange bird. Dickinson said hope is the thing with feathers, but the spirit and heart of a person has feathers too – strange ones sometimes.

In the dark night seasons, when even your most valiant efforts to draw near to God utterly fail and you can’t seem to find any of the joy or healing that you know is hovering out there somewhere beyond the bend of the stratosphere, you begin to envy satellites in the way that poet John Keats envied nightingales.

In a stanza from his poem “Ode to a Nightingale,” he observes the way a nightingale flies wherever it wants to and climbs to the heights for a better view when he is stuck on the ground. I would re-write it “Ode to a Satellite” if I could. If only I could orbit all of existence and see us, you and me – our lives, times, histories, joys, sadness – from a grand vantage point, like the mind-blowing view of the satellite in the video below, and somehow make sense of the story in a clean, linear fashion, from the first page to the last.

In the dark night seasons, the integrity of the story feels compromised. The pages feel charred and crumbling. The soul craves elevation, like a person yearning to climb a tree to see his way out of a very dark, maze-like forest.

Or like a satellite flying over all civilizations and beauties, quiet and at peace. Perfect clarity. Perfect vision. Like a nightingale that “singest of summer in full-throated ease.”

Before you watch the video taken from a satellite soaring over the earth, read this first stanza from “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats. Today I quote this stanza in ode to the satellite:

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

         My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

         One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

         But being too happy in thine happiness,—

                That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

                        In some melodious plot

         Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

                Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

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Dealing With Heartache

It’s when your spirit aches so much that you feel claustrophobic in your own skin: feverish and restless, pacing in your mind, dizzy and a little “out of it” – concussed, almost.

Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere…

Life feels empty sometimes. It can strike with an odd, unexpected sharpness: when you desperately miss someone’s presence in your life – family member, someone you love romantically, a friend, etc. – and you try to connect with them but the connection fails, falters, is ignored or even betrayed, and your heart just dies quietly in a vaporous, invisible solitude; or you’re grieving someone (or something) that you lost; or perhaps major disappointments begin to outnumber the major “wins” in life.

All these things remind us that even the best earthly loves, the best triumphs, the most fulfilling ambitions or careers, or the people we idolize or place at the center of our universe, can fail us.

…my heart and flesh cry out, to You the Living God…

They can break us with more power and efficiency than we know. Even after it’s happened we don’t know half the damage it’s caused. Only God sees it. Only He has the night vision to go searching in those caverns.

We can have it all, and then lose it all just as fast (or faster). And a great, swelling void appears.

So what happens next?

As I’ve learned, there’s only one answer that satisfies and heals that void in any real, lasting way:

How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
    and the swallow a nest for herself,
    where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
    Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed [happy] are those who dwell in your house;
    they are ever praising you. (Psalm 84:1-4, NKJV)

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She Got the Money They Badly Needed, But Then She Did Something Unthinkable...

It’s one of my favorite stories.

A British preacher and his wife had hit rock-bottom financially. They were serving God faithfully, they had kids, and they worked hard, but they couldn’t catch a break. Bills were due. Things were looking very bad.

But they didn’t stop serving the Beloved. (Note: “Beloved” is sort of a nickname the Bible gives to God’s people, i.e. the Church worldwide.)

They were asked to preach somewhere in England that would require travel. They only had enough money for the petrol (i.e. gasoline)needed to get them there. It was a one-way trip, at least financially. They had no idea how they would get back home. But they went anyways.

Before I go on with this story, let me emphasize something: this is a true story. The British preacher’s name is Alan Vincent. He’s still alive at the time of this writing, though this took place decades ago. I heard him tell the story.

When they arrived at the church parking lot where they were preaching, someone from the church approached them and gave them money. The person said something like, “God put it on my heart to give this to you when you arrived, though I don’t know why.”

It was enough money to get them back home – and then some.

Mr. Vincent was shocked and overjoyed. But then he saw a look on his wife’s face. Inwardly he thought, “Uh oh.” It was that look.

You see, it was Easter Sunday, and his wife had always been outrageously generous – some might even say a little foolhardy – with her financial gifts that she gave. She looked at Alan and said something like, “I was so brokenhearted because we didn’t have an offering to give on Easter Sunday. I asked God to give me something that I could give to the Beloved. I want to give this in the offering this morning. I want to give it to God to thank Him for His provision, to thank Him for the Cross, to honor Him” – something along those lines (not an exact quote).

Alan’s reaction was along the lines of, “Uh, I think God gave that to us to buy petrol so we can get HOME!”

It wasn’t just the gas money problem. They were so impoverished at the time that they were having trouble buying the basics – even food.

Nevertheless, his wife had such an earnest, childlike spirit about wanting to give an offering on Easter Sunday. Saying no to her would have been like stealing a balloon from an overjoyed child, and then maliciously popping it. He relented and allowed the money, ever so painfully and reluctantly, to be given away that morning in the offering.

Rational thinking and basic common sense would declare that to be, well, ridiculous and unnecessary.

I think God saw it differently. It was a sweet smelling sacrifice – an act of pure love and child-like faith. She also believed that God would take care of her family. She didn’t have trust issues or a cynical reaction when she read Scriptural promises like, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and ALL these things will be added to you,” (Matthew 6:6, all-caps emphasis added).

That afternoon, a family had them over for lunch before they went home. The family had no idea about the financial struggles of the Vincents. During lunch, the hostess felt a heavy burden on her heart. Privately, she felt an urging in her spirit to go to her pantry and fridge, empty all of the food out of them into boxes, and give the food to the Vincent family, along with a very generous financial gift.

Yes, the Bible promises difficulties as well as blessings (i.e. when Jesus promises, “You will have trouble in this world). But there’s always a second half to that promise: "but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

My prayer today (join me if you’d like): Abba, thank You for removing fear from my life and replacing it with child-like trust and a sincere love for giving. Forgive me for being selfish at times, and caring more about myself than the people around me. Your perfect love casts out all fear. Please cast it out of my heart. I’m tired of obsessing over my problems. It shouldn’t be about what I have or don’t have or how much I’m struggling. I want it to be about how I love You and treat others in the midst of whatever it is I happen to have, however much or little.

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Remember, Remember, Remember...

A New Vision: Come and Join Me in the Gratitude Shop!

You might have noticed a few changes around the site – especially the homepage. The theme, vision, and name of the site is less about me and more about the vision God has given me: to inspire, train, and encourage others to develop a lifelong habit of gratitude and contentment in Christ, until they can say, “I have and I enjoy God’s life in abundance to the full until it overflows” (a paraphrase by John Franco of John 10:10).

And I have lately been inspired by the artisan movement in the United States – particularly among Christians – as chronicled by the amazing book “Jesus, Bread, and Chocolate: Crafting a Hand-Made Faith in a Mass Market World” by John J. Thompson (#JohnJThompson).

The way artisans relish labor-intensive projects, working with their hands for hours, day, weeks, months, even years on one project (or just a few) just blows me away. I want to have that same attitude in the way I approach my relationship with God – particularly in the way I develop a lifelong habit of gratitude and contentment that can thrive under any condition.

Although my topics will vary widely, the stated vision above will inform the tone, atmosphere, and content of the blog.

So come and join me in The Gratitude Shop! We will work on seeing God’s goodness with clearer vision together.

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Irrepressibly Joyful

Irrepressibly joyful.

That sums up “Cinderella” — the new one just out in theaters.

The movie caught me by surprise. It really moved me and led to some deep realizations. And why shouldn’t it? It’s a classic fairy tale invented long before our modern world’s nauseating shallowness, and it’s directed by a man (Kenneth Branagh) who is in love with the writings of William Shakespeare.

And this new film has Shakespeare all over it — thanks to Mr. Branagh.

I have a theory about WHY this movie is so very timely — and why that irrepressibly joyful Cinderella is now a major role model — but you’ll have to read my full review of the film to get it:

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"Story in the Stars" - Looking Up at Night Will Never Be the Same

"Story in the Stars" — the new documentary from best-selling author and award-winning filmmaker Joe Amaral — has an ambitious goal: prove that God created the heavens, including the 12 most famous constellations in history, for an express purpose: to tell a story. But the spiritual enemy came and twisted humanity’s view of the night sky by lying to us about the nature of the stars.

This movie exposes that lie and shows the amazing true story of the 12 constellations, their significance in the Bible and to the earliest names mentioned in the Bible, and how they tell a grand story about a Messiah who was destined to be born of a virgin, to die, to be resurrected with victory over the serpent, and to one day return.

Sound familiar?

It’s a fascinating journey. You can read my much more detailed review of the film here:

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