Have you ever felt like the Lord is silent

Have You Ever Felt God Silence in Your Life

Learn why we don't feel his presence

How to get out of the dark night of the soul faster

Have you ever felt like the Lord is silent and has abandoned you or feeling lost and can't find your direction? Are a lot of things going wrong in your life? Do you feel like you are being crushed and pressed hard and lose your sense of peace and joy, which relapse into a lower spiritual and mental level? That's because you are in the Dark Night of the Soul or, another way, the Cloud of the Unknowing. (Acts 17:26-28). WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?

You probably think you are following God's agenda. In fact, a person is running too fast, thinking they are accomplishing God's agenda that is opposite of God's or that their way or vision for the kingdom is better. The Lord has to break the independent spirit in which we hit the end of our leach or take them in another direction. WHY? so you won't become dependent on the flesh and start the purification of the will so that it may be merged with God's will.

Every Christian has a God Leash (another way of saying God controls our lives). When a person hits the end of the leash, he goes into the Dark Night of the Soul. WHY? He must lose direction in order to come out going a better or clearer direction toward God's agenda. If that person doesn't lose his direction, he will continually pursue his own agenda, thinking he's going in the right direction.

Unfortunately, we are more soulish than spirit. So, God takes you into this darkness to redirect you. About the time you lose your bearings and get reoriented is when you get to pop out again. You don't pop out instantly going God's way at first. Each of us needs to be trained to recognize God's way, so we end up going through seasons of darkness in our lives.

When you are first saved, your personal agenda is thick, and that's the leash of God. Whenever we first exit from the Dark Night of the Soul, we usually go running headlong. You have a long leash that jerks at the end of it. The more you get into God's agenda, the shorter your leash will be. You will hate the short leash, but in reality, God tells you you're doing good. Moses had a really short leash, and he smoked the rock that caused him to not enter into the promised land. You will go into seasons of an actual short leash, and you think, "Why are you doing this to me," He says, "I'm doing this to you because you're really doing good. I want you to keep doing good." You take that one step out and are now in the Dark Place of the Soul. The shorter the leash, the quicker you exit because you realize what He's trying to do to you. The closer you get to God's agenda, the shorter your leash. He wants you to surrender your personal agenda.

From the time you are saved, the Lord takes every Christian through a maturation process to build character and dependence on Him. You will go through different stages of this process listed below:

* During the Dark Night of the Soul, you go through a survival mentality of becoming dependent on everybody. You feel like you don't know anything and everybody is going to tell you; and you are totally dependent on everyone and you hate it. In fact, you get to the point where you can hardly wait to not need anybody. During this time, you feel like you are hanging on the edge of a cliff, barely able to hang on. God intentionally causes you to have a spirit of dependence on everybody, and you can't wait to become independent again.

* Second, you will enter into the Independent Stage. As you mature, you will go into the independent stage. You will say, "I don't need anybody; it's God and me, and that's me on top." That is the death gurgle. You can watch them 5 to 2 years from now, and they are dead, but you are still alive. In five years, they will be in the ministry if they repent of their rebellion. UNFORTUNATELY, SOME PEOPLE DON'T MAKE IT OUT OF THE SURVIVAL STAGE. When you are independent, you can help people, but you need more in who you can help. WHY! You will produce people just like you, AND nobody can put anything in your life or tell you what to do, so you keep making people like yourself. You can bless some people, but the blessings are short-lived.

* Third, you will enter into a building or blessing mentality. The only way to enter a building mentality is when you recognize you can't do it alone, which is the opposite of survival. You become interdependent on others. You realize you need the help of others, and they need your help. Regardless of your flaws and weaknesses, you each build strength into each other. Instead of reproducing weaknesses, you reproduce your strengths, and others reproduce their strengths in you. 

Have you ever been wrongly Accused! The Lord will allow this because He is dealing with weaknesses in your life. Otherwise, your enemies would be at peace. It might not be what your accusers are saying, but He uses the weakness of others to strengthen your weaknesses. It doesn't make what they are doing right, but if you didn't have this weakness, He wouldn't have to use them. When you stop getting offended by some of their shortcomings, they stop doing what you got offended about. When you have victory in this area, it's usually because you've overcome this weakness. 

Depending on God, you will always spend time in the Dark Night of the Soul. It's coming to a place of knowing you need God's agenda over you, and you need others around you. During one of the battles, Moses had men holding his arms up. He needed their strength.

When you go through the Dark Night of the Soul of being redirected, do an attitude check to start handling these things inside of you:

* Do I have a personal agenda or ambition of building my own ministry and not God?* Do you need to check your heart to see if you are jealous of someone with a more excellent gift than you?* Are you getting mad at God and becoming self-defensive when someone ministers or corrects you?* Does the Lord want to take you in another direction to learn more about your calling and His purpose?

* Getting mad at God for things not happening as you think they should?

* Get mad at God for your past and ask, "Why, God, why did I have to suffer this?"

During the Dark Night of the Soul, you need to trust God in the dark and wait on Him. You must ride on sheer blind faith just hanging onto the Rock of Salvation. Sometimes, He even wants to destroy your ability to believe and have faith until you know you can think and have faith in grace. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. You can't take pride in anything; God will break you until you can't boast about anything. He will require you to thank Him because His plan is much greater than yours, and He's building character for others to trust you.

Are you demanding an understanding? You have one of two choices: wallering in misery and separated from God, or you can tell Him you need Him and His presence in your life more than you need understanding when life hands you a situation you cannot understand. Not understanding does not give you the right to demand to see into the secret of eternity. Maybe you are not supposed to know why God does certain things. The presumption of demanding an explanation is SIN. It's taking for granted that the Lord would grant you understanding. You have to trust Him blindly, as said in Hebrews 11.

During the maturation process, you will need to Build a History of Integrity. EACH OF US WILL FACE CRISES THAT WILL DETERMINE YOUR FUTURE. The previous private victories will help you make it when the tough times come, and you won't lose what He has built in you. 

You are going to have issues after issues that come up in your life where you are going to have a chance to cheat. You cheat on the front end, and there is a big balloon payment. It's big and much more challenging to pay the balloon payment than it would have been to bite the bullet in the first place. Pay the price today! Begin to build private victories, and in the moment of crises, when the stimulation says this and your heart says you don't want to do this, there's a moment of choice. Determine to do what is right. If you ask him in a crisis, He will tell you then. YOUR CHOICE WILL DETERMINE YOUR FUTURE HISTORY. It will determine if men can trust you or not. Your spirit will show if you can be trusted or not. Nebuchadnezzar told Daniel, "I have heard you have an excellent spirit." How did he know? Because of the light of God, you will show that you are a man of light.

You can know all the world's mysteries, but if nobody can trust you, nobody will listen to you, especially in prophetic ministry. It's more than just getting up "Thus Sayeth the Lord." You must build a history inside of you that will radiate to others 10 5 or 2 years from now. The more of these secret victories you have, the more the light of God will radiate from you. You will gain favors like Daniel, and others will know you have their best interests at heart and not your agenda. It starts when it seems like nothing, but it means everything. David slew the bear and the lion, and no one knew about it.

This entire process is very vital in every Christian's life. When you are first saved, you are very soulish. The Lord starts the maturation or purification process of breaking you to become more Christ-like and more able to walk more in the spirit. If you understand what He is doing, you can bear and thank Him for those dry and barren life stretches. Remember, it is building character so that others can trust you.

by: Traci Morin

Touch of God International Ministries - a Christian Healing and Deliverance - Setting The Captives Free

Anxious2Victorious Women Coaching Program