Category: Dark Night

Fifteen years later – a new perspective of when my life imploded

Published by Daniel on March 19, 2023

It’s been just over fifteen years since my life imploded, sending me into an unexpected and dark trajectory.

Fifteen years.

February 17, 2008, in the British Midlands, I walked out of an academic office after an hour of two examiners thrashing my thesis to a pulp.

My supervisor was confident of success. After all, of his 150 previous postgraduates that he supervised, only one had been rejected.

I was number two.

I so vividly remember the numbness and fog walking off that campus for the last time.

My wife had been planning a big celebration the day after I returned home. I remember the pain of calling my —the middle of the night back home—to tell her it didn’t go well.

So much time wasted—years, money, effort—up in smoke.

I haven’t looked at my thesis since. Honestly, I don’t even know where it currently is. Perhaps it didn’t make it with our move from Oregon to Montana, so it very could be rotting in a dump somewhere.

The ultimate objective of a postgraduate degree is to show the world that you are the expert in your respective field of study.

My dream was to settle into a comfy college setting and travel the world, armed with my expertise, and teach.

That dream couldn’t have suffered a more painful death.

The fall from potential academic to loser is a hard fall.

It sent me into arguably the darkest time in my life, a darkness that would last nearly ten years.

This darkness fluctuated between two grievances: why would God provide everything to lead me to pursue this degree in England only to rip it away? And how could God pull such a cruel bait-and-switch?

Many walk away from God as a result of these questions.

Thankfully, I never did.

I honestly thought I would not receive an answer this side of heaven. I will just have to live with this failure as I coast to the grave.

Now, fast-forward fifteen years.

A decade and a half.

From the perspective of time, can I see why God sent me on such a painful trajectory?
Strangely enough, I think I am beginning to see.

Ironically, I spent seven years right after that fall teaching in a college as an adjunct professor—a fun and wonderful experience.

But that’s not the reason.

Likewise, my book Losers Like Us was published by David C. Cook in 2014. Instead of an academic thesis sitting on a remote shelf in an the dusty basement of an academic library never to be seen again, I wrote a book that has sold thousands of copies, which might not be a big deal against best-selling authors, but to an obscure nobody, I’ll take it.

However, I don’t think that is the reason either.

Instead, I am beginning to see that God might have actually saved me from a life in post-secondary academia.

Over the last ten years, public education has been a dumpster fire.

Colleges have seen a dramatic decline in enrollment in the last several years. And, in an incredible lack of self-awareness, experts insist the decline had to do with Covid or the ridiculously high cost of getting a degree that often has no value.

Perhaps that has something to do with it. However, I am willing to bet the pathological sanitizing of and indoctrination in education is more likely the culprit.

It is more likely that parents and high school grades are seeing a higher education is worthless. Colleges have become bastions of lower standards at a higher costs.

These institutions no longer teach critical thinking, but rather indoctrination and Orwellian language games, such as using preferred pronouns or calling women birthing persons. The DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) administrator seems to have become the most powerful person on campus, requiring diversity seminars and even promoting punishments outcomes that could cost an individual his or her career. In addition, the standards for college admission have falling to the level of the mere detection of a pulse.

More and more, I realized that I would never want to be a part of that. I more than likely wouldn’t last a semester in academia. I would be crushed before my career began. I couldn’t or wouldn’t play the game required of me, where the goal-posts are moved, the rules are changed by the players, and justice is arbitrary and without due process. It’s not in me.

Currently, I am finishing my fifth year as a high school teacher at a Christian school in Montana’s capital city. I am surrounded by a wonderful community of faculty and administrators. I absolutely love the people I work with. Further, I live in a peaceful, rural neighborhood on a dirt road. People aren’t as stressed as they are in the big city.

Even during the most stressful times typical of education and life, I feel content.

I truly don’t think I would have what I currently have were it not for God tearing a Ph. D away from me.

This realization doesn’t answer all the questions about the events fifteen years ago, such as why he sent me to England to pursue the degree in the first place.

But I feel God has given me the best of both worlds: I get to teach which I was created to do, yet he also saved me from working in higher education which would have led me to burnout.

Of course, I am completely aware that there are Christ-followers who are called to and can navigate the academic clown show and be quite successful. God bless them. I pray for them always.

I, however, realized I am not one of them.

God knew that in 2008.

It was I who had to come to that conclusion in 2023.

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Giving the devil his due: the art of the lie

Published by Daniel on April 21, 2016

As I stood at the top of the staircase in the academic building at my august British university, the voices began: “Failure. Flunkie. Flop.”

I had just experienced what was, and remains, the most awkward, humiliating moment of my life. In the final hour of my seven years of effort, my two oral examiners had just rejected my PhD work. After hearing the news, I had to stand up in front of them, cram my useless 400-page paper into my briefcase, and exit the room in heavy silence. One of them had simply stared at me without expression; the other never made eye contact.

Classes were letting out, and the atrium below bustled with throngs of students, chattering and laughing. Their journey of chasing their dreams was just coming to birth, whereas mine had just died.

Carefully I descended the stairs—ashen, weak, almost too stunned to breathe—out of the building, down the path, and through the front gate, never to set foot on that campus again.

And the voices followed me: “Screwup. Moron. Misfit.”

I flew home to my dream job as a Christian high school teacher and soon learned that, for reasons I still do not know, my contract would not be renewed. So – on the last day of school there – I exited in shame from that campus too, never to return again.

And the voices continued: “Worthless. Washout. Idiot.”

Those voices would continue in my head for many years after that disastrous winter of 2008. I heard them in the quiet of solitude, whenever I was alone. I heard them in the dark while falling asleep, and again upon waking in the night. I heard them in the shower and while walking the dogs. And I heard them in waiting areas before job interviews. (Interviewer: “What would you bring to this organization?” Me: “I don’t know…a pulse?”)

I was so devastated by my losses that I figured there must be some truth to these voices. They became extremely hard to ignore.

Further, I truly believed (and still believe) that God had led me to that PhD program and that dream job, both of which began well but ended in disaster. And for a long time afterward, this belief led to even more accusations: “God tricked you; he led you into a trap. You have a right to be bitter toward the university, your advisors, your examiners, your boss, and even your God. Go ahead, curse them.” In an odd way, I am grateful that I was too numb, too paralyzed to act on those voices. But I still had to hear them.

Since that painful year, and the death of my life dreams, I continue to get questions from caring people who can’t understand why it all happened, but they try. The most frequent theory is that Satan caused me to fail because he was threatened by what I might have accomplished If I had succeeded.

Yet to me this explanation doesn’t wash, because it makes God and Satan sound almost like equals. You know, thrust and parry: God tries to advance his plans, and Satan counters to thwart them. Superhero vs. arch-villain. But this view gives too much credit to Satan, and far too little to God.

True, Scripture teaches that Satan is very real and powerful, and that he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8, NIV). But it also teaches that God alone is almighty, and Satan is simply one of God’s created beings. He can only do what God allows; he is not capable of creating obstacles or countermeasures which can successfully thwart God’s will.

In fact, Satan is not nearly powerful enough to do most of what we attribute to him. Even the trials of Job are credited not to Satan but to human attackers (vv. 14-15, 17) and freakish acts of nature (vv. 16, 18-19) – except for the trial of painful sores, with which Job is “afflicted” by Satan (Job 2:7, NIV). Still, Scripture consistently teaches that Satan’s power is limited, both in scope and in nature, and that even the limited power he does have is further limited by what God allows.

But Satan does not need to have power over circumstances to stop us. Instead, his weapon is words. Everyone takes a beanball to the head now and then, and Satan doesn’t necessarily throw the ball; he just messes with our minds after it happens. In fact, the primary power attributed to him in the Bible is the power to deceive. Jesus calls him “the father of lies” (John 8:44, NIV). His first words in Genesis are a lie: “You will not certainly die…” (Genesis 3:4, NIV).

And when he goes out roaming around, “looking for someone to devour,” his roar is dressed as a whisper.

He whispers to a lonely spouse, “Have an affair – what’s the harm?” He whispers to a depressed elder, “Go ahead, swallow the pills; everyone will be better off.” He whispers to a bullied teen, “Kill them all – they deserve it!”

He coaxes unsuspecting people to do his dirty work for him, causing waste and destruction in our own lives and in the lives of others.

And he whispers to all of us:

“Guilty.”

“Garbage.”

“Waste of oxygen.”

Which brings me back to the words in my own head: “Stupid. Nobody. LOSER.” When I was smashed into the canvas by a series of deadly blows to the head, Satan did not deliver the blows. No, instead he was the one kneeling over me, sneering, “Stay down, you piece of trash.”

His attacks were—are—just words. Powerful, persuasive words.

For me, sometimes those words were almost persuasive enough to make me slam my car into a retaining wall on some desolate highway.

But lies are just that: lies. They are not truth. And truth is the greatest defense against them.

So if Satan’s weapon is lying, and he’s very skilled at it, how do we win against it?

As with everything else, Jesus shows us how.

After Jesus fasts and prays for forty days in the wilderness, Satan comes to him (Matthew 4:1-11) – but again, not as a peer, like a strong villain overcoming Superman with kryptonite. No, Jesus is God, and Satan can’t match him head-to-head. So, true to form, Satan fights him with lies alone.

And Jesus responds not with lightning bolts or heavenly armies, but simply with truth. Of course, it helps that Jesus is truth (John 14:6). But that same Jesus – the Word of truth – lives in us as we are guided, counseled, and comforted by the Holy Spirit. So we have direct access to God’s pure truth.

The key is listening through the din of lies to find that truth, which is often much quieter – like the still, small voice heard by Elijah (I Kings 19:11). And learning to hear it usually happens over time.

When I was nearly overcome by Satan’s deceptions, even in my numbness I had the presence of mind to surround myself with truth. While I did almost everything I could to withdraw from the world, I also joined a home community – a small group of believers who shared their own brokenness and stepped into mine. I went to church. I read scripture. And I started to write. As I typed Satan’s lies and saw them onscreen, their falseness was exposed in the light of truth.

The truth of redemption is woven throughout the entire Bible story, which shows ordinary, broken, sinful people being loved, rescued, and used by God. As I studied how gently and persistently he worked with them, I began to trust that he is constantly doing the same with me.

So, over time, I am being rescued from lies by Christ Jesus, who himself is the truth (John 14:6), the Word of God (John 1:1). This Word created me, loves me, and came not to condemn me but to save me (John 3:17).

Gradually, over a period of years, he is giving me new words. Words of truth.

I hear the words: “Failure. Flunkie. Flop.” But God’s Word says: “Failure isn’t the end; I have a future for you” (Jeremiah 29:11).

I hear the words: “Screwup. Moron. Misfit” and “Worthless. Washout. Idiot.” But God’s Word says: “My grace covers every misstep, every sin” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

I hear the words: “Guilty. Garbage. Waste of oxygen.” But God’s Word says: “I love you, and I died to forgive you and bring your life meaning” (Romans 5:8).

And finally, I hear the words: “Stupid. Nobody. LOSER.” But God’s Word says: “Precious. Beloved. Child of God!”

This truth is life-changing. And we are not meant to experience it in parsimonious sips, like wine-tasters. We’re meant to dive into it, bathe in it, gorge on it—fully baptised in it, heart and soul.

Satan’s power is the power of lies. And our weapon against him is truth.

In truth, one heals.

In truth, lies are silenced.

In truth, Satan is defeated.

The paradox of the bells

Published by Daniel on December 23, 2014

At Christmas I often reflect on the incongruity of peace amid conflict, hope amid despair, light amid darkness. I am reminded of the simple paradox that light can push back darkness, but darkness cannot overcome light.

And nothing expresses this paradox better than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1864 poem, “Christmas Bells,” later set to music as the carol “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

We seldom hear the peal of church bells anymore, but in Longfellow’s time it was prominent in every town—especially at Christmas.

On Christmas Day 1864, our nation was enveloped in the darkness and despair of the Civil War. Yet Longfellow was struck by the joy and jubilation of the Christmas bells.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
     And wild and sweet
     The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
     Had rolled along
     The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
     A voice, a chime,
     A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!*

A couple of years earlier, Longfellow’s wife had died due to injuries from a fire; and more recently, against his wishes, his son Charles had joined the Union Army and had been critically wounded in battle.

Overwhelmed by grief, Longfellow struggled to reconcile the joy of the bells with the hopelessness of death and the destructiveness of war.

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
     And with the sound
     The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
     And made forlorn
     The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!*

In 2012, I experienced similar incongruity when America was rocked to its core by a string of December shootings.

On December 14, a shooter killed his mother and then, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killed 20 children and 7 adults, including himself.

On December 21, another shooter in Frankstown Township, Pennsylvania, fatally shot three people and then was killed in a shootout.

But before either of those events, on December 11 a gunman opened fire in Clackamas Town Center—a mall just a couple of miles from my home in Portland, Oregon— killing two people and then himself.

I remember standing on my front porch, surrounded by Christmas lights, watching the police and press helicopters circling overhead in the dusk.

The innocence of Christmas was lost for me that night.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of anticipating Christ—the one who came to save humanity once and for all. It is supposed to be a time when schools and malls are filled with laughter and singing and visits from Santa.

Not a time of screaming and running for cover.

Not a time of of loved ones grieving over bloodied bodies.

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said:
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

The next day I drove over to the scene of the shooting, just to be there. As I drove, the radio was playing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” (Casting Crowns version). It wasn’t the first time I had heard it, but this time it struck me at the deepest level.

As local folks tried to comprehend and grieve the ravages of the shootings, I thought of Longfellow struggling to understand and grieve the ravages of war, including his own son’s injury.

Then I thought of the very first Christmas—a time that was equally dark. In first-century Palestine, there was suffering, oppression, and terrorism. There was prejudice, hatred, and violence.

Just as in 1864.

Just as in 2012.

Just as in 2014.

Since Adam left Eden, it has never been any different.

Yet in the darkness, the bells proclaim that Christ was born to deliver the world from sin, and to set all things right.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Longfellow never lost faith because of the paradox of a beautiful world torn by war and violence. Instead, he listened to the bells. And in their joyous clamor, he found hope.

For those glorious bells proclaimed that God is here; he sees pain and injustice; and one day he will reconcile all things to himself.

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).

In ancient Eden, in first-century Palestine, and in America today, the darkness and self-destruction of this world was, is, and always will be overcome by Jesus, the Light.

Casting Crowns Perform ‘I Heard The Bells.’ from casting-crowns on GodTube.

* From the database of Longfellow poems at www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_front.ph (a website of the Maine Historical Society). It should be noted that when the poem was set to music as a carol, Longfellow’s third stanza (“Till, ringing, singing on its way…”) was moved to the end and his fourth and fifth stanzas were omitted.

The gifts of the star

Published by Daniel on December 18, 2014

Of all the symbols related to Christmas, the most meaningful for me is undoubtedly the star.

The star radiates majesty and mystery. Perched high atop a roof or tree, silently overlooking the frenzy of the season, it doesn’t judge, coerce, or demand attention. It is just there, waiting patiently for the world to look up and receive its message of hope.

Mentioned in only one passage of scripture (Matthew 2:1-12), the star seems to appear with purpose and move with intelligence, almost like a living character in the story. When the promised Messiah is born, the star appears to the Magi, but it does not at first lead them to him; instead it apparently disappears or is hidden for awhile, because they have to go to Jerusalem and ask where to find “the king of the Jews” (v. 2). After they learn the prophets foretold he would be born in Bethlehem, the star reappears, to their great joy (v. 10). Matthew says it “went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was” (v. 9).

It went ahead of them, and then stopped at a specific spot? What kind of star does that? It almost seems to have a mind of its own.

To me, its rare behavior indicates that the star was a supernatural phenomenon, ordered by God to mark a supernatural event—an event like no other in history: the coming of the Savior.

The first-century Jews were in desperate need of a savior. They were oppressed from without by a Roman empire that neither understood nor cared about what was important to them. They were oppressed from within by a system of religious laws which were impossible to keep. It was a time of uncertainty, violence, and hopelessness. God had been silent for four centuries since the last Old Testament prophet. The promise of the Messiah was ancient history, distant and forgotten.

They must have wondered if God had abandoned them—or if he even cared.

Then Jesus was born, and God sent the star to point the way to him.

The world today is also in desperate need of a savior. In our human arrogance, we think we are doing okay—but look at the headlines. We are not okay. We are lost in darkness and brokenness.

But how does that relate to the star? Isn’t the star just an irrelevant symbol of an ancient story? What difference could it possibly make in our dark world today?

I think the star still matters, because it shows God’s love and care. He used it to provide three gifts that are always desperately needed: anticipation, guidance, and the fulfillment of his promise.

First, the star created anticipation. Apparently the Magi had studied prophecies about the Messiah and had connected the dots. They recognized the appearance of the star as such an epic event that they eagerly packed their things, left their home, and traveled for about two years (according to the report in Matthew 2:16) to follow it to the place where he was. Imagine their excitement as they got closer and closer to finding him.

Anticipation creates excitement that God has something good in store. Without anticipation, we have nothing to look forward to.

Second, the star provided guidance. It led the Magi from far-off lands to the promised Messiah, just as the pillar of fire led the Hebrews (Exodus 13:21) from the Red Sea to the Promised Land. Both the star and the fire led their followers to a specific destination, chosen by God. And metaphorically, both showed the way of deliverance, out of darkness and into the light.

Guidance provides a sense that God is leading. Without guidance, we wander aimlessly in the dark.

Third, and best of all, the star marked the fulfillment of God’s promise. From the prophecies, the Magi knew about the promised Messiah, and they recognized the star as the supernatural sign of his birth. The star proved that God, who had seemed to be absent or oblivious for so long, not only makes promises; he also keeps them.

Anticipation, guidance, and the fullfillment of God’s promise—we need those three gifts now more than ever. For the Magi, the star was the light which guided them to Jesus. For us, it is a reminder that God will accomplish his plan for deliverance, even when we cannot see it.

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Five seconds on the journey

Published by Daniel on July 14, 2014

As daylight seems to be breaking on my long, dark night, I have been taking some moments to look back and reflect on a few things about all that has happened — my responses to the chaos, my emotional spirals, my relationship with God, and especially my trust in all things Yahweh.

Take that last one in particular. During my dark night, at times my trust in God was definitely strained, uncertain. This issue often came up in my prayers. More often than requests for justice over wrongs done to me, or for a miracle check from heaven to pay off my debts and bail me out of my circumstances (though I did pray for both of those things, believe me), my prayers leaned toward a plea to know the future.

lamp_unto_my_feet_painting_by_madetobeunique-d2xsvcd Typically God doesn’t reveal many details about each person’s individual future. But in my own case, when life sucked, I often wished he would. And during my long, dark bouts of depression and uncertainty, I often heard myself pray a silly prayer: “Lord, let me see five seconds of my future—any five seconds at all. Just let me see that there will be an end to this nightmare.”

My prayer was born of desperation – desperation to know whether things would ever change, whether there was something – anything – to look forward to. Metaphorically speaking, for years I felt adrift at sea, with every land-sighting turning out to be a mirage – taunting me, mocking me. I longed to know if I would ever make landfall again, or if the drifting would go on forever. I longed for the darkness to end.

“Lord, let me see five seconds of my future.” An irrational prayer? Definitely. Because which five-second moment in the future would he show me? A really good one? A really bad one? Would seeing it ease my anxieties about the future, or stir up more of them?

But thankfully, when we pray, God hears our need – not our rationality. He knew my prayer was like the plea of an injured child: “Daddy, make the hurt go away.”

And I began to notice that he did answer me. The answer I heard was always the same: a verse from Psalm 119 – the longest poem in the Bible: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (Psalm 119:105).

Not very specific. No details about the future. And definitely not the revelation I was seeking.

Yet during those long years of darkness, I had plenty of time to think about it. And I realized that for someone like me, in the middle of a “dark night” experience, that verse was very appropriate.

I came to understand that the “lamp for my feet” is not a high-powered flashlight, shooting a beam far into the distance. It doesn’t show me every perilous ledge, rushing river, or wild beast awaiting me up ahead. Instead it’s more like a lantern with a soft orange glow, illuminating only my immediate surroundings. It provides enough light to keep my next step safe. Beyond that, however, there is still darkness. And there’s no promise of future knowledge – only “your word.”

What is that “word?” To David, it was the Law of Moses – the first five books of our current Bible. To contemporary Jews, it is the whole Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament). But to Christ-followers, it is much more: it is the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Christ himself, the living word. He is the lamp for our feet and the light to our path. For the light of that word to guide me to safety, I must constantly meditate and depend upon it—upon him.

If we pull back from that verse and consider the rest of Psalm 119, this whole poem is unified by a single theme: the word. And within that theme is the continual plea for understanding. Because in Psalm 119, deliverance from darkness comes through a deeper understanding of God’s word.

In the last stanza of Psalm 119, David prays:

May my cry come before you, Lord;
give me understanding according to your word.
May my supplication come before you;
deliver me according to your promise. (Psalm 119:169-170)

During my deepest darkness, the silly prayer I mentioned was met with a verse promising light to guide me through it, one step at a time. I was never shown the outcome of my journey in any detail. Instead I was given just enough light to keep me from stumbling or straying off the path. But that light came by hanging on to the written word of scripture, and also the living word – Christ, the light of the world, who will lead me safely down the path.

Through the darkness.