What is a "dark night of the soul"?
Many believers describe a stretch of life when prayer seems to hit the ceiling, joy drains away, and God feels absent — what people often call a "dark night of the soul." Scripture speaks directly to the one who walks in darkness and has no light, and the commentators treat that condition seriously: they describe how it feels, what it does and does not prove, and what the person in it should do next.
The experience described
One writer puts the feeling into words with unusual accuracy, and takes it seriously rather than scolding it.
J. Wilson SmithA dark mystery seems to attach to God's dealings with you. Things are not as they were in days past, when His candle lit up your darkness and His sun shone on your path. You prayed then, and were heard. You felt you had plenty of help and sympathy from above. Your sky was clear and your song triumphant. But now clouds, darkness, difficulty, sorrow and helplessness surround you, and your heart is crushed. And the painful experience continues. If it lasted only a night, and joy and deliverance followed in the morning, you could bear it; but that deliverance does not come.
Faith stripped of every support
The darkness is not a failure of faith. It is faith working with nothing visible to lean on.
J. N. DarbyIt is faith looking at God when all circumstances are against the one who exercises it... It is, so to speak, naked faith, without anything to sustain it of what God gives to His people as the witness of granted favours. The result is a full trial of the soul.
Who is doing the hiding?
Commentators differ on how to explain the sense of God's absence. Some point to the heart's gaze drifting from Christ:
Andrew MillerA living conscience, warm affections, and yet darkness! There can only be one cause for such a state of soul — the eye is not resting on the Beloved Himself. There may appear to be other causes, but this is the real one.
Others go further, and deny that God withdraws from His children at all:
Frederick W. GrantHow often His people speak dishonouringly of God hiding His face from them, when, if there is any hiding, it must be they who are doing it, not He. God, who always looks on His Beloved with unchanging delight, sees us always in Him, and cannot turn away. The clouds that hide the sun do not come from the sun but from the earth.
Why the explanation is withheld
Much of the pain is the craving to know why. That craving is answered, but not on demand.
J. Wilson SmithThe explanation of His ways with you will be given in good time, but not today; and does not most of your difficulty lie in the desire to get that explanation now? Most probably. Must God explain to us the reasons for His discipline? Is that necessary for us? Must we give our children the reason why we see fit to correct them?
The wrong way out of the dark
The verse that follows warns against manufacturing your own light — kindling a fire and walking by its sparks.
William KellyIt is always useless for a sinful man to trust his own devices, or human remedies, to improve his condition before God or to enjoy lasting comfort. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Father of mercies and the God of all encouragement.
What to do in the meantime
The instruction in the dark is not to strain for feelings, but to hold on and keep calling.
Hamilton SmithWhen Christ hides Himself, keep waiting, and keep making noise until He returns; that is no time to be carelessly patient. I love to be grieved when He hides His smiles. Yet believe His love by waiting on patiently and believing in the dark. You must learn to swim and keep your head above the water even when the sense of His presence is not there to hold up your chin.
Darkness is not the Christian's normal position
Several writers insist this state is real but not where a believer is meant to settle.
William KellyChristians may not always act according to the light, but they walk in the light, as He is in the light. "He who follows me," says our Lord, "will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Summary
- Real. The darkness is a genuine experience — unanswered prayer, withdrawn comfort, a crushed heart — and it is described in Scripture, not invented by weak believers.
- Not proof. It does not prove God has forgotten you; the clouds come from the earth, not from the sun, and He sees His people in Christ without turning away.
- Naked faith. Stripped of every visible support, faith looks at God when all circumstances are against it — and that stripping is the whole point of the trial.
- No sparks. The one temptation to refuse is lighting your own fire; human remedies give a brief glow and end in sorrow.
- Trust and wait. The instruction to the one with no light is to lean on God's name — keep calling, believe His love in the dark, and wait for the explanation He will give in His own time.