after dusk.

I am really no good at sleeping on holidays. New beds, different room, different sounds. I am also really bad at sleeping if my husband is gone, if I am a passenger on any mode of transportation, if my kids have woken up twice in the night, etc, etc. I am most comfortable in my own bed in my own home. Always.

Isn’t it funny how we all crave the comfortable? Most comfortable bed, couch, clothes, hotels, cars. The lists are endless. We seek out comfort. What I find slightly entertaining is how comfort in my spiritual life is something that I try to avoid. Want to know why? Because the more comfortable I am, the less I think I need to work. And the less I work, the easier it is to make compromises. And the more compromises I make, the more danger there is that I will end up putting space between me and God.

I have been thinking, lately, about the cyclical nature of my faith. I go through a period of trial, struggle, challenge where I feel lost and bereft. In that time, I end up learning so much; about God and his character and his limitlessness. It is a growth spurt. And then the dawn breaks on the horizon and the sky turns brilliant blue and I get a time of rest. Of refreshment. I get a little comfortable. Then the sun sets, and dusk creeps across the sky, and I am once again facing the night. And so on it goes. Some nights stretch long and restless, and some pass in the blink of an eye. But they always are a time of learning, growing, stretching, refining.

What I find so interesting is how I am learning to crave and long for and embrace the nights. The darkness. I want to learn and grow and stretch. I want the picture of God to be made clearer and clearer with the arrival of every dawn. I want to pick up a lamp and plumb the depths and corners and crevasses of the dark to find all the bits and pieces and dust specks of God’s goodness that are scattered around, waiting for me to search. I want it all. And the longer I live (which I know isn’t really that long yet) the more I desire and yearn for an increased knowledge of God. I want to learn how to better sit and wait and listen and appreciate the night.

Have you ever thought about the towering figures of biblical history? They were nightmen. They lived in the dark. Not always, but often. Paul especially. And Paul learned quickly that those dark times, those times of prison and persecution and flight, were the best times to seek and know God. Would he have been the man he was if God let him live in the brightness of comfort? Would he have made such a profound impact on the church if he had sought the predictability of living in the light? No. Humility is found when there is nothing we can do to get ourselves out of the pit we have fallen into. There is no one who moves us into the light but God. David knew that. David, a man renowned for his faith, spent much time in the dark nights. He learned that calling out to God is all there is left to do when the sun has set and the world seems to change. He was constantly learning and growing. And he was far from perfect. But he always knew where to go when things went wrong. He knew how to be humble, how to seek the face of God. Elijah. An edifice of faithfulness when the whole of Israel seemed to be crumbling. He suffered terribly. Yet, he was taken up to be with God, without tasting physical death. He was a wanderer, a lonely man. Used mightily by God. Do you see the theme? The stories we love, the men God gave us as examples, were men who knew where to turn to when they felt the most alone, the most incapable, the most trampled. They grew in faith, in faithfulness, in humility, in love. They sought and found God in every hour of pain they experienced. They learned the truth of ‘joy in the sorrow’ first hand.

Surrounded by so much comfort, ease, and plenty, it is second nature to shun anything challenging. I know I do my fair share of griping and groaning. But the more I experience the lessons of God, the more I stand ready to face the coming dark with a smile at the ready. God is in the light, God is the light, but greater still, He reveals more and more of himself in the night. So when I pray to learn and grow, I am ready. Learning and growing seem, at least to me, to happen after dusk.