“Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.”
—Exodus 20:21
Moses, the friend of God, encountered the Lord in fire and in cloud. He was called to approach the unapproachable, to meet God in the darkness.
All the light we see is darkness compared to God’s.
The light in which He dwells is so pure, so radiant, it blinds us. To us, it may as well be darkness—unreachable and overwhelming.
To “see” God… to experience His presence… we enter into the dark.
We must die to this world and to ourselves.
Only then can we be born again—awakened to the reality of the Spirit.
But even as believers, we may still experience what St. John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul.” He described this spiritual journey in three stages:
1. DUSK
This is when things begin to fade.
We drift—away from light, away from the Lord, away from reality.
Truth is obscured.
The long shadows of compromise, doubt, and pain creep in.
The more we try to satisfy our souls through our senses, the duller those senses become.
Life becomes a twilight existence.
2. MIDNIGHT
The second stage is faith. Total darkness.
It may seem strange to associate midnight with faith—
but Scripture tells us:
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
—Hebrews 11:1
Often, we can’t see God working.
We can’t perceive the answers to our prayers.
We feel alone.
Darkness, for a while, can even feel safe—it hides what we fear.
But then, in the pitch black, we begin to long for the faintest light.
And that longing becomes trust.
In that midnight hour, we learn to trust Jesus, the only Light that never goes out.
3. DAWN
Thank God for dawn.
Dawn breaks when the trial ends, the depression lifts, or the tears begin to dry.
And through it all, we realize:
God was there.
He never left.
His Spirit was holding us, whispering to us in the silence.
And as His presence washes over us like the morning sun, we are filled again—with peace, with hope, with gratitude.
If you are walking through a dark night of the soul, please hold on.
God is there.
Waiting for you in the dark.
And His love will carry you back into the light.
I know.
I’ve been there.
