No doubt there may be such a thing as true fear of God in the soul
along with spiritual darkness, faith without the joy of faith. Now this
condition seems contradictory of the very nature of the Christian life.
For religion is union with God who is light, and if we walk in Him, we
are in the light. How then can such experience be?
We must dismiss the notion of God's desertion of the trusting soul. He
is always the same; He has 'never said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye Me
in vain.' But while putting aside that false explanation, we can see
how such darkness may be. If our religious life was in more vigorous
exercise, more pure, perfect and continuous, there would be no
separation of faith and the joy of faith. But we have not such
unruffled, perfect, uninterrupted faith, and hence there may be, and
often is, faith without much joy of faith. I would not say that such
experience is always the fruit of sin. But certainly we are not to
blame Him or to think of Him as breaking His promises, or departing
from His nature. No principles, be they ever so firmly held, ever so
undoubtingly received, ever so passionately embraced, exert their whole
power equally at all moments in a life. There come times of languor
when they seem to be mere words, dead commonplaces, as unlike their
former selves as sapless winter boughs to their summer pride of leafy
beauty. The same variation in our realising grasp affects the truths of
the Gospel. Sometimes they seem but words, with all the life and power
sucked out of them, pale shadows of themselves, or like the dried bed
of a wady with blazing, white stones, where flashing water used to
leap, and all the flowerets withered, which once bent their meek little
heads to drink. No facts are always equally capable of exciting their
correspondent emotions. Those which most closely affect our personal
life, in which we find our deepest joys, are not always present in our
minds, and when they are, do not always touch the springs of our
feelings. No possessions are always equally precious to us. The rich
man is not always conscious with equal satisfaction of his wealth. If,
then, the way from the mind to the emotions is not always equally open,
there is a reason why there may be faith without light of joy. If the
thoughts are not always equally concentrated on the things which
produce joy, _there_ is a reason why there may be the habit of fearing
God, though there be not the present vigorous exercise of faith, and
consequently but little light.
Another reason may lie in the disturbing and saddening influence of
earthly cares and sorrows. There are all weathers in a year. And the
highest hope and nearest possible approach to joy is sometimes 'Unto
the upright there ariseth light in the darkness.' Our lives are
sometimes like an Arctic winter in which for many days is no sun.
Another reason may be found in the very fact that we are apt to look
impatiently for peace and joy, and to be more exercised with these than
with that which produces them.
Another may be errors or mistakes about God and His Gospel.
Another may be absorption with our own sin instead of with Him. To all
these add temperament, education, habit, example, influence of body on
the mind, and of course also positive inconsistencies and a low tone of
Christian life.
It is clear then that, if these be the causes of this state, the one
cure for it is to exercise our faith more energetically.
Trust, do not look back. We are tempted to cast away our confidence and
to say: What profit shall I have if I pray unto Him? But it is on
looking onwards, not backwards, that safety lies.
Trust, do not think about your sins.
Trust, do not think so much about your joy.
It is in the occupation of heart and mind with Jesus that joy and peace
come. To make them our direct aim is the way not to attain them. Though
now there seems a long wintry interval between seed time and harvest,
yet 'in due season we shall reap if we faint not.'
'In the fourth watch of the night Jesus came unto them.'