How long you continue in this night of the soul will depend upon a number of factors, some of which you may be able later to identify, while others will remain with God, completely hidden from you.
The words The day is thine, the night also is thine will now be interpreted for you by the best of all teachers, the Holy Spirit; and you will know by personal experience what a blessed thing is the ministry of the night.
But there is a limit to mans ability to live without joy. Even Christ could endure the cross only because of the joy set before Him.
The strongest steel breaks if kept too long under unrelieved tension.
God knows exactly how much pressure each one of us can take.
He knows how long we can endure the night, so He gives the soul relief, first by welcome glimpses of the morning star and then by the fuller light that harbingers the morning.
verse
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? . . . But I trust in your unfailing love . . .
— Psalm 13:1,5a
thought
There are times when we pray by faith with no sense of His presence; witness and there is no response; serve without joy or recognition. In those times our prayer, witness and service are more precious in God's sight because they are done for Him alone.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for trying to flee the night as if You were not as much there as in the blazing sunlight. You are with me and it is you I serve.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
To do His supreme work of grace within you He will take from your heart everything you love most.
Everything you trust in will go from you.
Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be. . . . All this God will accomplish at the expense of the common pleasures that have up to that time supported your life and made it zestful.
Now under the careful treatment of the Holy Spirit your life may become dry, tasteless and to some degree a burden to you. While in this state you will exist by a kind of blind will to live; you will find none of the inward sweetness you had enjoyed before.
The smile of God will be for the time withdrawn, or at least hidden from your eyes. Then you will learn what faith is; you will find out the hard way, but the only way open to you, that true faith lies in the will, that the joy unspeakable of which the apostle speaks is not itself faith but a slow-ripening fruit of faith; and you will learn that present spiritual joys may come and go as they will without altering your spiritual status or in any way affecting your position as a true child of the Heavenly Father.
And you will also learn, probably to your astonishment, that it is possible to live in all good conscience before God and men and still feel nothing of the peace and joy you hear talked about so much by immature Christians.
verse
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
— Psalm 42:11
thought
When the sense of His presense is withdrawn and your life seems to shatter; when you feel cold and dull spiritually, keep praying. Keep feeding on His Word. Keep walking by faith ? naked faith. He is there. Trust Him.
prayer
Lord, I find it difficult to walk by faith in the night. But You are teaching me. I can't see You but Your Spirit assures me You are there. Thank You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
If God sets out to make you an unusual Christian He is not likely to be as gentle as He is usually pictured by the popular teachers.
A sculptor does not use a manicure set to reduce the rude, unshapely marble to a thing of beauty. The saw, the hammer and the chisel are cruel tools, but without them the rough stone must remain forever formless and unbeautiful.
To do His supreme work of grace within you He will take from your heart everything you love most. Everything you trust in will go from you. Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be.
This is not to teach the sanctifying power of poverty. If to be poor made men holy every tramp on park bench would be a saint.
But God knows the secret of removing things from our hearts while they still remain to us.
What He does is to restrain us from enjoying them.
He lets us have them but makes us psychologically unable to let our hearts go out to them. Thus they are useful without being harmful.
verse
For our God is a consuming fire.
— Hebrews 12:29
thought
The old hymn put it well: "When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."
prayer
Remove the dross, O Lord, even though I whimper and moan. Purify me. In it all I know Your grace will be sufficient.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
There is a great difference between having company and having a friend in the house.
The friend we can treat as a member of the family, but company must be entertained.
God is not satisfied until there exists between Him and His people a relaxed informality that requires no artificial stimulation. The true friend of God may sit in His presence for long periods in silence.
Complete trust needs no words of assurance,
Such words have long ago been spoken and the adoring heart can safely be still before God.
Unquestionably the highest privilege granted to man on earth is to be admitted into the circle of the friends of God.
Nothing is important enough to be allowed to stand in the way of our relation to God.
Nothing in heaven or earth or hell can separate us from the love of God; we should see to it that nothing on earth shall separate us from God?s friendship.
verse
A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.
— Proverbs 18:23
thought
Have we entered the circle of God's friends? Some of us remain acquaintances. We have not yet become friends. His invitation to warm friendship is extended to us.
prayer
Lord, it staggers the mind that I can enter into friendship with You, the eternal God.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It should be pointed out that no revealed truth becomes automatically effective.
The effect any truth has upon us depends upon our attitude toward it.
First it must be accepted in active faith and received into our minds as completely trustworthy and beyond dispute.
It must become a kind of dye to give color to all of our thinking and praying.
The more perfect our friendship with God becomes the simpler will our lives be.
Those formalities that are so necessary to keep a casual friendship alive may be dispensed with when true friends sit in each others presence.
True friends trust each other.
verse
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.
— John 14:1
thought
True friendship is based on mutual trust. If we can trust Christ for salvation, why can't we trust God in all areas of life? There is no alternative.
prayer
Lord, how often my heart is troubled because I don't trust You. I am letting go and trustfully sinking into Your arms.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
verse
God, being perfect, has capacity for perfect friendship. Man, being imperfect, can never quite know perfection in anything, least of all in his relation to the incomprehensible Godhead. Perfection lies on Gods side, but on mans side there are weakness of purpose, lack of desire, small faith and numerous other impediments.
These make for a friendship which, though it is the most wonder-filled experience possible to man, is yet short of that completeness we would enjoy if these impediments were removed or even reduced appreciably.
Though the truth compels us to admit these imperfections on our side of the divine-human friendship, yet there is no reason to despair. In spite of our human frailties we can grow in grace and move progressively toward a more perfect experiential union with God.
This we can do by firm self-discipline, quick obedience, unceasing prayer, utter detachment from the world and the exercise of robust faith in the truths revealed in the Holy Scriptures
.I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
— John 15:15
thought
Seeing Jesus with His disciples reveals something of the experiential union we can know with God. Christ the God-Man in His deity shows us what God is like and in His humanity what we can become. He calls us to deepening friendship.
prayer
Lord, what You have learned from the Father You are making known to me. You call me "friend," too!,
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The image of God in man cannot extend to every part of mans being, for God has attributes which He cannot impart to any of His creatures, however favored. God is uncreated, self-existent, infinite, sovereign, eternal; these attributes are His alone and by their very definition cannot be shared with another.
But there are other attributes which He can impart to His creatures and in some measure share with His redeemed children. Intellect, self-consciousness, love, goodness, holiness, pity, faithfulness these and certain other attributes are the points where likeness between God and man may be achieved.
It is here that the divine-human friendship is experienced.
verse
And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend.
— James 2:23
thought
Abraham, despite weakness and failure, was called God's friend. Abraham believed God. He just believed God. Are we friends of God?
prayer
Lord, help us to discern and revere your attributes, while willfully exercising those which You have imparted to us for Your glory and our sanctification. Expand our faith beyond human limitations and weaknesses, that we may experience true intimacy with You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The idea of the divine-human friendship originated with God. Had not God said first Ye are my friends (John 15:14) it would be inexcusably brash for any man to say I am a friend of God.
But since He claims us for His friends it is an act of unbelief to ignore or deny the relationship. . . . Even though radically different from each other, two persons may enjoy the closest friendship for a lifetime; for it is not a requisite of friendship that the participants be alike in all things; it is enough that they be alike at the points where their personalities touch.
Harmony is likeness at points of contact, and friendship is likeness where hearts merge.
For this reason the whole idea of the divine-human friendship is logical enough and entirely credible.
The infinite God and the finite man can merge their personalities in the tenderest, most satisfying friendship. In such relationship there is no idea of equality; only of likeness where the heart of man meets the heart of God.
This likeness is possible because God at the first made man in His own image and because He is now remaking men in the image that was lost by sin.
verse
You are my friends if you do what I command.
— John 15:24
thought
That we are created in God's image is mind-blowing. Granted, sin has marred and distorted that image but it has not been destroyed. What immense possibilities are open to us through image restoration ? not least of which is friendship with God.
prayer
Lord, show me something of what it can mean to be in friendship with You!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
When the rich young ruler learned the cost of discipleship he went away sorrowing.
He could not give up the sunny side of the brae. But thanks be to God, there are some in every age who refuse to go back.
The Acts of the Apostles is the story of men and women who turned their faces into the stiff wind of persecution and loss and followed the Lamb whithersoever He went.
They knew that the world hated Christ without a cause and hated them for His sake; but for the glory that was set before them they continued steadfastly on the way.
Perhaps the whole thing can be reduced to a simple matter of faith or unbelief.
Faith sees afar the triumph of Christ and is willing to endure any hardship to share in it.
Unbelief is not sure of anything except that it hates the wind and loves the sunny side of the brae.
Every man will have to decide for himself whether or not he can afford the terrible luxury of unbelief.
verse
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
— Matthew 19:22
thought
The rich young ruler sounds like one of the new millionaires of Silicon Valley. Most of us won't have the option of millions. We just choose the relative wealth of this world, living for the few years of our lifetime. It is that or eternal life which can. . .
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for sometimes complaining about the wind in my face. I have chosen You. Thank You for the wind!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/