Lectio
“Truly born again people always desire to be renewed continually, precisely because the Spirit keeps on revealing, in and around them, places of darkness that have not yet been transformed by the light. For as long as we live, we need to be reborn and deepen our spiritual understanding as we walk together in the light.”
— Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life
Meditatio
Quite often, spiritual rebirth is not the pleasant, joyful experience we imagine or hope it to be, at least not at first. For many of us, conversion begins with and is interwoven with suffering. We cling to the very darkness that drove us to God, refusing to let go because it is what we know. Even as the light of love shines upon us, we fight to maintain what is familiar, and that familiarity keeps us in the very darkness God is freeing us from. As much as he draws us out into divine communion and leads us into the community of fellowship, we seem to do everything we can to drive ourselves back into the shadows of alienation.
This may be the reason God does not reveal himself to us all at once. With all of our flaws and failings, we likely could not handle the abruptness of the guilt, shame, and remorse we would feel were we to look him directly in the eye knowing how far we have fallen from his abounding love, even while his love remained unwavering and unchanged. And so God reveals himself to us slowly, but even this is often too much for us to process. Even this is often so frightening that we attempt to revert to our old selves. But God’s love is persistent.
And so our rebirth happens in stages. The light of the Lord brightens gradually, first exposing and then healing layer after layer of not-God in our hearts. The tighter we cling to our old selves, the more these layers of not-God have come to define us, the more painful this process will be. But over time, we begin to trust the light, and we begin to trust the process. As God’s faithfulness is revealed we loosen our grip on these things and we reach more and more for the hand of God who accompanies us through our shadows and gives us the courage to trust that the things we once clung to never belonged to us in the first place.
This is the gift hidden in our suffering. The hand that draws us into the light, into the love, into the life of Godself — the hand that feels foreign and frightening — we discover, in time, was accompanying us through the darkness all along. We were not alone. We were being sustained from within the very light we feared until we were ready to receive it. Until we were willing to let go, to be free, and to dance in both the shadows and the light, trusting that God is present in both.
Oratio
Light dances
on the wall
casting shadows
revealing truth
the Spirit dances
in our hearts
illuminating darkness
unfolding grace
God dances
within Godself
from love to love in love
Father, Son, and Spirit
and thus we dance
with the Lord
who lights our path
and draws us near
Contemplatio
What layer of not-God in your heart is the Spirit currently revealing — and can you trust that the revealing itself is an act of love?
Related Scripture
“But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, ‘Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’” — Ephesians 5:13–14 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
enjoyed this post, you may also like Awakened by Love: Christ’s Yes, Our Yes, and the Sleep We Leave Behind, which explores a similar threshold moment — the movement from spiritual slumber toward consent, and how Christ’s unwavering yes becomes available to us as our own.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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