When the Darkness Will Not Lift by John Piper

Author:John Piper
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Psychopathology, Faith, Psychology, Christian Life, General, Religion, Self-Help, Spiritual Growth, Depression
ISBN: 9781844741847
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2006-12-13T22:00:00+00:00

3

F o l d N o t t h e A r m s

o f A c t i o n

Waiting for the Lord in a season of darkness

should not be a time of inactivity. We should

do what we can do. And doing is often God’s appointed remedy for despair. Wise Christian counselors, ancient and modern, have given this advice. George

MacDonald, whom C. S. Lewis called “his master,”1

wrote:

1 C. S. Lewis, ed., George MacDonald: An Anthology (London: Geoffrey Bles, The Centenary Press, 1946), 20.

46

W h e n t h e D a r k n e s s W i l l N o t L i f t

[God] changes not because thou changest. Nay, He has

an especial tenderness of love towards thee for that

thou art in the dark and hast no light, and His heart is glad when thou dost arise and say, “I will go to my

Father.” . . . Fold the arms of thy faith, and wait in the quietness until light goes up in thy darkness. Fold the arms of thy Faith I say, but not of thy Action: bethink thee of something that thou oughtest to do, and go to

do it, if it be but the sweeping of a room, or the preparing of a meal, or a visit to a friend. Heed not thy feelings: Do thy work.2

Richard Baxter gave the same counsel three hundred

years earlier than MacDonald and traced it back to the Bible.

Be sure that you live not idly, but in some constant business of a lawful calling, so far as you have bodily strength. Idleness is a constant sin, and labour is a duty.

Idleness is but the devil’s home for temptation, and for unprofitable, distracting musings. Labour profiteth others and ourselves; both soul and body need it. Six days must thou labour, and must not eat “The bread of idleness.” (Prov. xxxi. 13-27.) God hath made it our duty, and will bless us in his appointed way. I have known

grievous, despairing melancholy cured and turned into

2 Ibid., 36. See the quote in its context from the sermon “The Eloi,” at

http://www.johannesen.com/SermonsSeriesI.htm.

Fold Not the Arms of Action

47

a life of godly cheerfulness, principally by setting upon constancy and diligence in the business of families and callings.3

What Matters Is Your Duty,

Not Your Joy?

This counsel from MacDonald and Baxter raises a critical question. They both seem to make feelings negligible. They seem to say: What matters is that you do your duty, not that you feel joy. But that may not be what

they mean, and if it were, I would strongly disagree.

When MacDonald says, “Heed not thy feelings: Do thy

work,” he means: don’t let wrong feelings govern you.

Act against them. If your feelings are telling you that staying in bed is the best thing today, preach to your feelings and tell them how foolish they are. Don’t lose sight of the gospel in this preaching! Don’t forget that defeating these wrong feelings and getting out of bed is enabled by the Spirit and is becoming what you are in Christ.

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