CONSOLATION: the felt presence of God; it reinforces our behaviors / spiritual disciplines
DESOLATION: the felt absence of God; God shows you where pieces of your heart really are; God wants to make my heart His home, but my vices etc. hinder this. So must purge-- bring it up and deal w/ it. God is NOT withdrawing, but taking you into new weaknesses. POWER IS PERFECTED IN WEAKNESS
Dark nights of the soul: How to know if I'm in dark times?
(1) can't stay focused in spiritual disciplines
(2) don't want to do spiritual disciplines
(3) the truth about #1 and #2 worries me
Temptation in dark nights:
(1) I'm doing something wrong i.e. I used to experience God back when I did it right
(2) I need to work harder to get back that feeling (it's really just a gift)
(3) I just end up doing spiritual disciplines less and less
What to do in dark nights:
(1) be open to the fact that maybe God wants to get your attention
(2) REMEBER THAT SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES HAVE CHANGED IN PURPOSE (not reinforcement/encouragement, but a mirror)
(3) resist temptation to fix ourselves to make prayer etc. work; not like we were doing it worse than before; we can't do it on our own
(4) resist temptation to generate spiritual experience; He's already there. Discern by faith, not feeling. Worship movement is romance. People hope to gain loving feelings. If it's there, cool. But if not, it's not ours to generate.
(5) avoid temptation to generate experiences for others (as a leader)
(6) be willing to go with the spirit for heart surgery
THE GIFT OF CONSOLATION:
to encourage us, to give us a taste of the presence of God even ahead of our character development in order to direct our heart to Him (prayer, word, fellowship, service), to reinforce these behaviors with zest
THE GIFT OF DESOLATION:
to mirror what is in the heart, to show what is going on inside (the hidden heart), to see ourselves as we are, so see parts of the heart that do not love Him, that do not enjoy prayer, etc
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