Os Guinness - God in the Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of Doubt

God in the Dark

Copyright 1996 by Os Guinness

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

Portions of this book were previously published as The Secret of a Womans Influence (1988)and The Wise Woman (1980), both by Broadman Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Cover illustration: Raymond Elliott

Cover design: Cindy Kiple

Art Direction: Mark Schramm
First printing, 1996
Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from The New English Bible. The Delegates of the
Oxford University Press and The Syndics of The Cambridge University Press
1961, 1970. Reprinted

Scripture verses marked amp are from the Amplified Bible. Old Testament copyright 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright 1958, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint
copyrighted material: From Knots by R. D. Laing, the poem If I Dont Know
... I Dont Know, copyright 1970 by the R. D. Laing Trust; reprinted by
permission of Tavistock Publications Limited and Pantheon Books, A Division
of Random House, Inc. Four lines from The Free Thinker from The Collected
Poems of G. K. Chesterton; reprinted by permission from Miss D. E. Collins and
Dodd Mead and Co., Inc.

C O N T E N T S
1	11
2	21
3	Forgetting to Remember Doubt from Ingratitude	39
4	Faith out of Focus Doubt from a Faulty View of God	57
5	No Reason Why Not Doubt from Weak Foundations	75
6	An Unsigned Contract Doubt from Lack of Commitment	95
7	No Sign of Life Doubt from Lack of Growth	113
8	Coup dtat from Within Doubt from Unruly Emotions	125
9	Scars from an Old Wound Doubt from Hidden Conflicts	145
10	Why, O Lord? Doubt from Inquisitiveness	165
11	How Long, O Lord? Doubt from Impatience	197
215
217

T he simplest things in life are often the most profound. Sometimes I feel on fire with the immensity of this: Each of us is a personalive, growing, and relating. From the moment we wake to the moment we fall asleep, we think, we feel, we choose, we speak, we act, not as isolated individuals but as persons among people.

And underneath everything lie dependency and trust. From a baby with its mother, to friendships of children, to neighbors in community, to agreements among nations, life depends on trust. Counting on people is trust. Enjoying people is trust. Trust is the shared silence, the exchanged look, the expressive touch. Crying for help is trust; shaking hands is trust; a kiss is trust. The highest reaches of love and life depend on trust. Are there any questions more important to each of us than, Whom do I trust? How can I be sure?

We can devise a thousand strategiessuch as lawto help us flee from trust. We can summon up scores of reasons such as suspicionto protect us from vulnerability to trust. But we have all once known the experience of complete dependence and complete trustwith our mothers at the beginning of life. And we can all know similar dependence and trust at the summit of our livesin our free acknowledgment of God, when we receive his gift of faith as a trust that arises out of utter dependence on him.

All of which is why when trust goes and doubt comes in such a shadow is cast, such a wound is opened, such a hole is left, such anxiety gnaws.

God is not only a person, he is the supreme person on whom all personhood depends, not to speak of life itself and our entire existence. That is why to know him is to trust him, and to trust him is to begin to know ourselves. That is why our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. It is also why trusting God in the dark is so hard, and doubting God is so devastating. For when trust and dependence turn into doubt, it is as if the sun is eclipsed, the compass needle wavers without a north, and the very earth that was so solid moves as in an earthquake.

I have met some people who are on the road to faith who doubt God because they want to believe but dare not. How would you feel if someone flew more than halfway around the world to say to you, I am at a loss. Life has no meaning unless God is there. There is hardly anyone left whom I can trust. Will you help me in my search? I well remember a man on our doorstep in London who had crossed the world for this very reason. It was deeply sobering because I knew that after his previous failures to find answers he had cried out louder and more often, and the scars of the razor blades were still on his wrists to show it. What would you say? How would you help him? How would you introduce him to God who would never let him down, especially since God was less certain to him than human beings who had let him down?

I have met other people who are backing away from faith in God and doubt God because they do not want to believe but still do. I will never forget a woman who sat in our living room when we lived in Switzerland. She argued; she cried; she pounded the floor. Why should she trust God? He was a monster; a hard, unyielding monarch; a Mafia boss whose power was everywhere; a merciless creditor who demanded his pound of flesh. Hadnt she tried to obey? Hadnt she given it everything? But the more she saw God the more she feared, and the more she feared the more she became angry, and the angrier she became the more she hated, and the more she hated the more afraid of God she grew.

She knew she was caught in a vicious trap, sliding down a slippery spiral. She was young; she was loved; she was successful. But none of it made any difference. She could not trust God. She could not trust with real rest and without reservations. And in the bitterness of doubt, her spirit was like darkness at noon.