The Test of Your Life

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
- John 13:34-35

Jesus made it clear that His real disciples would be known by a kind of love beyond anything the world had ever seen. Look at all those who claim to be Christians in America today. Are we really any different in our love than the world? When I look at the world, I see many charitable organizations. I see many kind acts and noble sacrifices. Just look at how the world responded after the 9/11 tragedy. It is true that I also see arguments, quarrels, fighting, factions, and so on... but when I look at "Christians", I see the exact same thing. As hard as I try, I really can find no difference at all between the kind of love Christians demonstrate toward each other and the world itself. Maybe a little different here and there, but for the most part, it is not a quantitative difference. Not the sort of the difference that stands out and marks us as completely "other", "set apart". Remember the early church? They loved till it hurt. I mean they were going so far as to sell their homes and all their possessions in order to give to each other and others in their need. They took Jesus seriously when He said, "sell all that you have, give to the poor, and come follow Me." They laid their life down entirely for each other.
"By this all men will know that you are My disciples..." By what? "even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." How did Jesus love us?

For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
- Rom. 5:7-8

We lay our life down for each other. No longer do I think about trying to find my life, but I lose my life for Christ's sake. I lay it down in order to love Him and to love others.
Paul is making a very interesting comparison. He says hardly anyone will die for a righteous man... maybe a few would dare die for a good man... but who on earth would die for someone that hates them? Who would die for a sinner? For someone who does terrible unimaginable things? For someone who does not love you? But Jesus died for us when we were still sinners, even before we ever had it in our heart to turn to Him, and instead loved only ourselves and self indulgences. Here is the test, then, of your life. The test of who you love and how you love them. But this test is far more serious than you think:

The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
- 1 John 2:9-11

Don't think that this sort of hatred is just strong negative feeling. You will fool yourself into thinking this passage doesn't apply to you. This hatred is simply the absence of love in your heart for another, just as darkness is the absence of light. Is there someone in your life that you will not open your heart to in love? There are times when we are instructed to separate from a brother, but never in hatred. Even in separation, your heart should be filled with love for the other. Never an unkind word should leave your lips, never a judgmental tone. This is because you know what lies in your own heart... you have learned the humility of recognizing your own sin:

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us... If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
- 1 John 1:8,10

If you are in the truth, then you know that you are no better than this other person. You have nothing more to offer God, nothing more on which to stand. The only thing any of us have is Christ and His right-ness. We cling to Christ because we know that apart from Him we deserve death. How can any of us look at another with even so much as the slightest sense of superiority? What if God judged you in like manner? You would perish.
You ask, "who is my brother?" and I give you the same answer Jesus gave the man who asked Him, "who is my neighbor?" In short: everyone. You think John is speaking only of love toward Christians? I can assure you, he is not. At any rate, Jesus Himself tells us we are to love our neighbor, and then goes on to describe in the story of the good Samaritan that our neighbor includes everyone, especially those who normally despise us... but just in case this isn't enough for you, Jesus makes it abundantly clear in the sermon on the mount:

You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
- Matt. 5:43-47

Do you see what Jesus is saying? As one person paraphrases the last part, "This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that."
Do you not feel the conviction? This is a test for yourself. You can go around telling yourself you are a child of God and walking in the light, but stop and ask yourself if there is someone in your life you won't love. Is there someone that is "tainted" in your mind? Is there someone you won't forgive? Is there someone you won't release from what they did? Is there someone "annoying" or "obnoxious" that you avoid? Is there someone different that you steer clear of? Remember the good Samaritan? The Hebrews were taught to disdain Samaritans, since they had perverted the worship of God, and most Samaritans grew up in a culture that hated the Hebrews right back. Is everyone else in your life telling you to disdain a certain person or group of people? Especially watch out for those who disdain others for religious reasons, just as the Jews disdained the Samaritans. Do you actually fall for it? Then your love is no different than the love of the world.
Does this seem like a heavy burden? An impossible task? Well, just to make it even more impossible, Jesus adds this in the very next verse: "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." How's that for a heavy burden? Why on earth would Jesus do this? Why would He ask the impossible of us? Jesus gives us the answer all over the place, but I will highlight two places. First, Jesus starts off the sermon on the mount with the answer:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Jesus is placing an impossible burden on your back because He is trying to maneuver your heart into a place where it actually experiences the truth: that you have nothing to offer spiritually. Just try to love in this way apart from the real love of Christ in you. You will fail, every time. This kind of love is not natural... it is, in fact, supernatural. So, go ahead, give it a try... you will discover that spiritually, you are a pauper, a beggar, a nobody, a nothing. This brings us to brokenness and mourning - and, more importantly, dependence. Just like a beggar, we are utterly dependent on the grace of another for our provision. Hand to mouth. We also see this when Jesus asks the rich young ruler to sell everything he owns - something nearly impossible for him to do. In fact, the rich young ruler couldn't bring himself to do it, becoming very sad and leaving Jesus. Those who saw this felt the weight of this burden as well, and in astonishment asked Jesus, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus replied, "The things that are impossible with people are possible with God." You can't do it, but God can do it in you. Where does that leave you? Maybe it leaves you where it left the man who said to Jesus, "Lord, I believe - help my unbelief!" We come to God empty handed, spiritual beggars. All we can bring Him is unfulfilled desire: we want to love like He loved. We want to want to love like He loved.... but we seem so unable to accomplish it. In this place of humility, and with the faith that God can and will work this into us, He lifts us up and does indeed begin to craft us more into the image of Christ, through everything in our life. This is why all things work together for the good of making us more like Christ if we love Him. If we love Him we will submit to everything God brings into our life, and through that submission we will find that He is working a very real love into our heart. Yes, we will end up loving just as Jesus loved, but only after we have first discovered that we are incapable of doing so. God loves paradoxes.
Oh, and when you decide to love, look carefully at Christ, His love, and His teaching on love. Someone once told me they grew up in a church where the women would go around hugging their Bibles saying, "I just love my Jesus!" but then turn right around and start gossiping about others. They fooled themselves into thinking they loved Jesus, but they were actually living a lie. That wasn't love at all.
Now, I can go on and on talking about love, but in the end it will mean absolutely nothing if I don't go out and allow the love of Christ to love others through me. I need to practice sacrificial love, so I'll end with this exhortation from John:

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

1 John 3:16-18

Wait on the Lord

"I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the LORD."

Psalm 27:13-14

This is an entry written to myself. It is something I find myself having to constantly remind myself of lately - I also find myself pushing it aside more often than I'd like to admit.

Soul, wait on the Lord. This is what you need right now. Why is it so important to wait on the Lord, and what does it mean? I don't have a full answer, but don't forget the small pieces God is teaching you now.

Waiting on God means you have to stop. Stop being in control. You have to stop trying to wrap your hands around the situation or the problem.
Waiting on God means you have to stop needing a certain outcome. It is this need that pushes you to take control and work things out toward that outcome. You start manipulating, coercing, demanding, pleading, devising, or otherwise doing things to guarantee circumstances go the way you want.
In other words, waiting on God means you have to let go. Not let go in the sense that you do nothing. This is not a lazy letting go. Letting go in the sense that you are willing to trust God with whatever outcome He allows. This trust is based in the confidence that God is good, and is doing good in your life even if the outcome is not what you would have chosen.
Waiting on God is a recognition that you don't have the answer, that you don't know what's best, that you can't do it, that you are incapable, dependent, needy, and weak. It is humbling, especially since you were so caught up in this age, an age that demands instant results, and loathes someone who doesn't have an answer. An age that despises anyone who is dependent and needy. An age that is, in fact, nothing more than a lie. For anyone who would dare think of themselves as not needy and not dependent, or even just feel it, knowing better than to think it, as you did, has deceived themselves. Thus, waiting on the Lord is a recognition of what is already true about my own self: I am weak, needy, dependent, incapable, and so must wait for God to lead me and act on my behalf.
Waiting on God means you stop looking to yourself, and look only to God.
More controversial, I would say that this applies even to your own fight against sin. You are not capable of defeating sin alone. Haven't you proven this to yourself enough already? If you try, you will either fail, or have a failed success. You might stop yourself from some particular sin, but you are unable to change the heart condition from which that sin sprang, and so that sin will be replaced by another sin, and usually, the new sin is self righteousness, or a sense of confidence in your ability. Does that mean you do nothing? No - it means you call out to God and wait for Him to answer. And while you wait, you prepare the way by humbling yourself before Him. Then, in your waiting, He shows up, in His time, and reveals the next step. He may do this by teaching you a new truth from His Word, encouragement from a wise friend, chastisement as a consequence to sin, life circumstances, etc. You know that all things work together for the good of making you more like Christ, if you love God, so you obey, and wait, and He shows another step. You obey, and wait, and He shows another. Over time, He leads you to victory. Don't overwhelm yourself by looking at the whole law, and at all the ways you are failing. Leave all that at the cross and just focus on the next step the Holy Spirit reveals. Each of these steps may involve something very hard, maybe even a real fight against sin - so this is certainly not a lazy waiting - but it is God alone who knows the way, and the way is often different for different people. A unique path custom made for each of us. All of your learning and knowledge of truth is not so that you can know how to achieve victory yourself, but rather it is so that you can know your Father and how to follow Him so that He can lead you. The important thing here is dependence. In fact, you have experienced many times lately where God will reveal the next step and you falter, being unable to actually take it... so you cry out to Him in utter dependence, "Oh God, I do not know how to do this - I don't know how to let go of this... please, help me!" And He has always answered that prayer, eventually.
This is a hand-to-mouth existence. If God gives, you thrive, if He turns away, you die - as the Psalmist says in Psalm 104:27-30 (The Message),

All the creatures look expectantly to you
to give them their meals on time.
You come, and they gather around;
you open your hand and they eat from it.
If you turned your back,
they'd die in a minute—
Take back your Spirit and they die,
revert to original mud;
Send out your Spirit and they spring to life—
the whole countryside in bloom and blossom.

Utter dependence on God, whether you acknowledge it or not. If He were to turn His back on any of us for a moment, we would die. A sobering thought to you, if you forgo waiting on the Lord - turning your back to Him and setting out alone - even if you are setting out on the "good" path of obeying His commands, to set out alone is sin, iniquity. Even in your defiant attempt at independence, it is only God's continued grace toward you that keeps you alive as you attempt to fool yourself into thinking you are in control. God is merciful. He gives you a chance to repent.
Waiting on the Lord means you listen expectantly. You know He will answer and move, since you are asking Him for a good thing, or rather, you are asking Him for the same thing He wants in your life. You actively look for His answer, and desire to yield to whatever it may be. This is important, because very often God answers your prayer and tries to show you the next step, but you turn a blind eye, not wanting to face it, or not wanting to submit. The expectation here is coupled with your admission that you don't know what is best. Oh, your flesh tells you a certain outcome would certainly be best, but you know that God's best always brings a far greater, genuine, permanent joy, and so you can be excited for God's answer, even if it is what you don't want. You are excited, because through His answer comes a joy and glory that cannot even be compared with any momentary sorrow.
Waiting on the Lord means you hunger and thirst, and as a result readily receive whatever mana God gives, with thanksgiving - just as someone dying of thirst in the desert feels the greatest gratitude of their life for nothing more than a sip of water, even if that water be muddy or off taste - a sip taken entirely for granted in other circumstances. You see how poor you truly are now, and every bit of grace is ecstatic to the soul.
If you acknowledge what is already true, that you are weak, and so turn to God rather than yourself, you discover what He is capable of:

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth
Does not become weary or tired
His understanding is inscrutable.
He gives strength to the weary,
And to him who lacks might He increases power.
Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,
Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Waiting on the Lord requires a basic faith that God is real and will really move if you wait for Him. Maybe not toward the outcome you want, but definitely toward what is best for you.

Stop worrying, stop obsessing, stop manipulating, stop aggrandizing, stop demonstrating, stop parading, stop wearing your masks, stop coercing, just stop. Rest. Quiet down. Pray. Seek God. Wait for Him. Trust Him. And listen. Listen carefully for that still, small voice.

An echo through the centuries

I don't know anything about Mechthild of Magdeburg, except that she had a profound love for God and wrote many expressions of that love during her life, which was sometime in the 1200s (about 800 years ago). I came across a couple of those writings today and they so resonated with my spirit and with what God has been teaching me that I am compelled to share them. I can't vouch for anything else she may have written or believed... but I do see great truth in these writings.

Of the nine choirs and how they sing:
Now listen, beloved, listen with the ears of the spirit,
this is how the nine choirs sing:

We praise you Lord, that you sought us out with your humility,
We praise you Lord, that you maintained us with your mercy,
We praise you Lord, that you honoured us in your disgrace,
We praise you Lord, that you guided us with your gentleness,
We praise you Lord, that you set us in order with your wisdom,
We praise you Lord, that you protected us with your strength,
We praise you Lord, that you sanctified us with your nobility,
We praise you Lord, that you gave us insights with your intimacy,
We praise you Lord, that you lifted us up with your loving kindness.
...
Thus speaks a beggar in her prayer to God:
Lord, I thank you for having taken from me in your love all earthly riches,
that you now clothe and feed me with the goods of strangers;
for everything that, with delight, my heart clings to as its own
must become estranged from me.

Lord, I thank you for having taken from me the strength of my eyes
and that you now serve me with the eyes of strangers.

Lord, I thank you for having taken from me the strength of my hands,
and that you now serve me with the hands of strangers.

Lord, I thank you for having taken from me the strength of my heart,
and that you now serve me with the hearts of strangers.

Lord, I thank you for them that you reward them on this earth with your divine love,
so that they will feel obliged to pray to you and serve you with all their might until their holy death.

All those who, with a pure heart, leave everything for the love of God are arch beggars;
they shall rule in judgment on the last day with Jesus our Redeemer.

Lord, everything I complain to you about must be changed in me and in all sinners.

Lord, you must grant me and all imperfect religious people everything I ask you for,
for the sake of your own glory.

Lord, no matter what I do, fail to do, or suffer,
your praise must never be silent in my heart. Amen.

The thoughts contained in this next quote may take some by surprise. Those of us raised in fundamentalist churches may even bristle at what is said... but think carefully about these words. They do indeed speak truth. She is not ascribing any kind of value or importance to herself, but rather to what God has worked and is working. Let the way she presents this truth shock you out of your stupor. God intends to glorify Himself in us, and if so, then how? By this very thing:

God: What do you bring Me, My Queen?

Soul: Lord, I bring You my precious treasure; It is greater than the mountains,
Wider than the world, Deeper than the sea, Higher than the clouds, More glorious
than the sun, more numerous than the sun, more numerous than the stars,
it outweighs the entire earth!
[note: she is free to ascribe such value to this "treasure" because of her faith in Jesus, who has redeemed her and given her a new heart - His own heart - a heart with desires that far outweigh the value of the world]

God: O you, the image of My Divine likeness, made noble by My humanity [referring to Jesus, who is God as human and has redeemed us], adorned by My Holy Spirit, what do you call this precious treasure?

Soul: O Lord, I call it my heart's desire!
I have kept it away from worldly things,
I have denied others and myself my heart's desire.
Now I can no longer carry it. Where, O Lord, shall I lay it?

God: You shall place your heart's desire nowhere but in My own Divine Heart and on my human breast. There alone you will find comfort and My Spirit will embrace you.

Finally, let me share the end of Psalm 33, and then, her answer to this Psalm:

Watch this: God's eye is on those who respect him,
    the ones who are looking for his love.
He's ready to come to their rescue in bad times;
    in lean times he keeps body and soul together.

We're depending on God;
    he's everything we need.
What's more, our hearts brim with joy
    since we've taken for our own his holy name.
Love us, God, with all you've got—
    that's what we're depending on.

And so, she prays:

Ah, Lord, love me passionately, love me often, love me long. For the more continuously
You love me, the purer I will be; the more fervently You love me, the more beautiful
I will be; the longer You love me, the holier I will become here on earth.

Did you know that God wants us to desire His love for us? Did you know that it is not selfish for you to seek out God's love for you? It would be selfish for me to seek out the love of others for my own consumption, but it is not selfish for me to seek out the love of God. In fact, God wants us to do so. Is this a new thought to you? God actually wants you to seek out His love for you. He actually longs for you to ask Him to love you more. And do you think He will deny such a good request?

Thank you, God, for You.

You are the exalted One, sovereign over all. You are the God that created. You are the God that creates. You are the God that delights in creating. "When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man." (Prov 8:27-31)

You have drawn me to Yourself. You spoke over the void and created this world. You spoke over my soul and said, "let there be light." You raised me from the dead. You have shown yourself to me. You have broken me, exposed my iniquity, and from there nursed me to health. It is true, as others have said, your rod and your staff are a comfort and reassurance.
You have been a loving Father, gently leading, showing your love in all you do. You teach me the way of life, and show me how to walk in it. When I am not able, you work all things toward that end in my heart, both to will and to do your good pleasure. You give me hope, because you give me growth... growth I have never been able to achieve without you. And now I can see you are at work in me. Now I can see you are taking me somewhere - you have a plan for my soul. It may be my earthly lot is obscurity, but I do not look at the earthly. You have taught my eyes how to see what is not seen, how to want what is not visible. You have put heaven in my heart, allowing me, for the first time, to be motivated by You and Your eternal riches.
You are the God that finishes what He begins. If it were up to me, O Lord, if it were up to me, I would lose all that you've given. I know! I've done it before! I took this new life for granted and slowly turned away, without even realizing. But You were faithful. You sought me out again and turned me back. In You I trust, O God. Even my faith is a gift, and I cry out to You: never let me take it for granted again. Help me, O my dear Father, help me to embrace what the Spirit is doing.

Thank you God, that You care for each of us. You have the plan, You have the glory, You have everything worked out. We could be but one cosmic spec of dust in this great machine - utterly insignificant. But You, who are the One Significant over all, You know us each intimately. We find our significance, not in ourselves or anything we do, but rather, in that the All Significant One knows us. We are significant to You, for Your own reasons.
Thank you God, that You are love, mercy, power, and justice all at once. You suffer long now, so that all of us have a chance to choose You. But I thank You that You will visit this world in all your power and glory. One day the elect will be swept away, and You will set all wrongs right. Your great power and wrath will pour out on all those who mock you, disregard you, or otherwise try to live life apart from you. All those that think only of themselves, hurting others in the process. All the tears shed over all the years will find their answer in that day. All the blood soaked into the mud will have its true and just vengeance in that day. All those who mock. All those who call what is good evil and what is evil good... all of them will face your fierce wrath. You will shake the very foundations of the world. It will be impossible to ignore You then. Everyone who was so strong and mighty will be in utter terror before You. Yes, that is my wonderful, loving Father, bringing justice upon the earth. But not before mercy, not before love. He sent His only Son, Jesus. Jesus, in His great love, died for us, took our punishment, and felt His Father's wrath on our behalf. He gives redemption as a gift to all who will receive it. We have this time now to turn and choose our beloved Christ. It is not necessary for anyone to suffer God's wrath. All they have to do is choose Christ. This is what You made possible, God, in Your great plan.
Here I am, God. Here I am. I want more of You. I hunger and thirst for You. Show me more, I pray.

My Father in heaven, I worship Your precious and holy name - may all the world worship it as well. May Your kingdom come quickly... Usher it in my own heart, so that I do Your will here on earth, just as it is done in heaven. I am utterly dependent on You daily, so I ask you to provide for me today both physically and spiritually. I am dependent on You for food. I am dependent on You for forgiveness, O God - please give me grace to forgive others, especially in light of all you've forgiven me. I am dependent on You even for the ability to be dependent on You and the ability to follow You! So, please, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil.
For the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory are Yours.
Now and Forever.
Amen.

Sabotaged by the Shadow

This is a selection from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men",

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow
...
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
...
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
and the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

People wonder what it means - but sometimes life puts you in a place where you experience what it means... you realize words can never really capture it, and he said it well.

The Woman at the Well

A moment.
All our life we thirsted,
But never knew it,
For it was all we ever knew.
But in a moment...
A cup was lifted to our lips -
We drank the sweet liquid...
And in a moment,
All the pain of all the years
Stood out like a blistering spire
Against the peace
Of that moment,
And we became aware...
All our life we've longed for this,
But never dared to believe in it.
We were taught this
By that moment.

Now we know,
And will never be satisfied
With anything less.
This one act of kindness
Has awakened us.
Our eyes are opened;
We see the desert all around.
The blistering heat
Warping all reality in mirage.
We abandon it,
Setting out for what we've tasted
In that moment.

A moment,
And everything changes.

A well defined system

Philip Yancey says, "During their times of testing, it appeared to both Job and Abraham that God was contradicting Himself. God surely would not act in such a way - yet clearly He is." He goes on to explain that, "the purest faith emerges from just such an ordeal. Even though I do not understand, I will trust God regardless." I agree with Mr. Yancey in this particular point (I have learned much from him, even though there are a few things I don't fully agree with him on). God wants our trust, not our knowledge and insight. These things have their place, but that place is to support a real relationship of trust and dependency on God, not to replace the relationship.

God wants us to be humble, because He loves us. He knows that humility is necessary in our relationship with Him, and so is necessary in our having any of those things He promises to us in the scripture: joy, peace, rest, and so on. As a loving father, He shepherds us into the fields of humility. If, however, we insist on going our own way, then by that same love He will resist us, so that maybe we will return to the fold and the healthy fields. He resists us so that we do not go down the path of ultimately hurting our own self and others. Well, God has been in the process of humbling me lately, and because I did not willingly yield, I have experienced that resisting hand. Along the way, He has been teaching me many things, and I'd like to share one of those here.
We really want our religion to be a well defined system. We humans in general are always trying to connect all the dots. What we really want is to take the mystery out, and the underlying motive is control, isn't it? We want to know exactly how God works and how this Christianity thing works so that we can remain in control of our own spiritual destiny. We hate surprises and unknowns. Otherwise, we face the prospect of having to trust God with things beyond our comprehension, and having to walk a bit in the dark. God is light, right? We should never have to walk in the dark. But we are tripping up here over our English language. Just because we use an English euphemism that happens to contain the word "dark" does not mean we are speaking about the same sort of darkness the Bible tells us to avoid. God is truth, and that is the nature of His light. To walk in darkness means that we try to hide what is true, or live in deception. But there is a way that we walk "in the dark" which actually exposes us to more light. Let's try saying it using different words, "But we sometimes must walk without full knowledge of everything, which actually exposes us to more light." The bad sort of darkness is deception or lie, the good sort of darkness is inability - in this case, inability to know (or see) everything. Think about it, who is capable of comprehending God? God, the infinite, is beyond the comprehension of anyone else beside Himself, because anyone else is finite. So, we are always walking about with an incomplete picture of who and what God is, and in whatever areas our picture is incomplete, we are "in the dark", so to speak. It is in these very areas that we have only trust, or faith, to rely on. And we hate that. So we try to find the dots surrounding those dark areas and draw lines between them... hopefully those lines will cover up those unknown things and we will finally have a well defined system of who and what God is. We must either fail miserably at this attempt, or succeed more miserably - because any "success" we think we have is only a self deception, which, as you'll recall, is our very definition of walking in the dark.
This is a big part of the story of Job, in a nutshell. He lived his life just fine with a certain understanding of who and what God is, as did all his friends. But then God did something He should not have done, something that didn't fit their system: He caused an "innocent" man to lose almost everything and suffer. Of course, Job's friends refused to question their well defined system, and so bent the circumstances to fit it. Their conclusion: God is doing this to judge Job for something. Job might have been willing to question his system, but in order to do so, he needed to know, "why, God!?!" Why? Why did you do this? God's answer? Well, He never told Job why. Instead He said something to the effect of, "All around you all the time I do things you cannot possibly comprehend, yet you accept them without question - but when I hurt you, suddenly you must know why. Humble yourself and trust me with this too." God fully intends for us to NOT be able to connect all the dots. How, then, can we know Him who is beyond our full knowing? Simple. God designed us to know Him not by the completeness of our knowledge and understanding, but by a relationship. It works the same way with our human relationships. Who here can fully understand their own self, let alone someone else? It seems every day I discover something new about those closest to me, yet, I "know" them. I know them through a relationship. It is possible for me to study and study all there is to know about my wife, yet if I don't have a relationship with her, I don't "know" her. Am I saying that I should not study her at all then? Of course not! Knowledge IS important, but only in the context and for the purpose of that intimate relationship. God never intended to reveal a complete system or picture of Himself in the scripture. He intends for us to remain dependent on Him in those areas He never spells out. He WANTS that, He did it on purpose. That is why men debate to this day things like God's sovereignty vs. man's free will. God revealed only enough to enable our relationship with Him, not enough for us to fully comprehend how these two things can coexist. It is when we lose sight of God's purpose for His revelation that we begin debating and fighting with each other.
The Bible can seem so sloppy to us control freaks. Why doesn't God just come out and tell us directly how faith works? Why doesn't He tell us how it is He can judge man for his choices, and yet remain sovereign over everything? Why doesn't He tell us where sin comes from? Didn't God create everything perfectly? Why doesn't He answer in one place the problem of pain? Why doesn't He tell us definitively if infants that die while still infants go to heaven? Because He didn't write the Bible to give us a complete system of knowledge. He wrote the Bible to facilitate a love relationship between God and man. Just like I do not fully know everything there is to know about my wife, and yet I "know" her intimately, so it is we can know God intimately without knowing everything there is to know about Him. He intends it this way, and at least one reason is so that we will remain dependent on Him. Knowledge can puff up much too easily. We start to rely on what we know rather than on God. Every now and then, God will do something He isn't supposed to do, at least according to our "system", in order to bring us back to dependence on Him instead of on our understanding of Him.
The amazing thing is, I knew all this before. I've even said these exact same things to others before... but God decided to show me a new area of distrust in my heart. He brought out fears and anxieties that I didn't even know lived within me. I wasn't aware of them because I had carefully constructed a system of who God is that made me safe from the things I was most afraid of. I'm not talking about a simple system of, "God is going to provide for me and won't let that happen." No, I knew better, and made my system more sophisticated. But, in the end, it provided me some level of safety from certain pains I wanted never to know. This then allowed me to create another false system: because I was not aware of these things within myself, I thought myself above them. Yes, I had created a false system of my own self. So, when God turned up the heat and these things began to creep out, my first reaction was just to deny them... "that's not me! I'm above that!" It is humbling for a man to admit that yes, he really does have this iniquity in his heart. It really is me. I deceived myself, and God brought it out to the light. James has been quite a help during this time. To paraphrase James 4:5-10,

And do you suppose God doesn't care? The proverb has it that "he's a fiercely jealous lover." And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you'll find. It's common knowledge that "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
Be humble then before God. but resist the devil and you'll find he'll run away from you. Come close to God and he will come close to you. Realize that you have sinned and get your hands clean again. Realize that you have been disloyal and get your hearts made true once more. As you come close to God you should be deeply sorry, you should be grieved, you should even be in tears. Your laughter will have to become mourning, your high spirits will have to become heartfelt dejection. You will have to feel very small in the sight of God before he will set you on your feet once more.

It's easy for us to stand on our boxes, look around, and see how hard others are making their lives due to their shortcomings. "Oh, man, why does he believe that way? Can't he see how he's hurting himself?" "Dude, let me point out this area of pride in your life here..."
Before you go down that path, realize just how infected you are with pride. This is not an issue of you having battled your way up the hill, and now from your vantage you are able to reach down and pull up your brethren. No, my friend, if you feel this way, then you are doomed. We are all battling side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Pride is a relentless enemy, and will never stop until we are given new bodies. Until then, turn to God in utter dependence, not to your carefully crafted system. Too many Christians have fallen into the error of thinking that the Bible has revealed a complete system, and so we have the ability to know everything. They have to believe this, because they fear if the Bible isn't complete, then it becomes too easy for people to make up their own stuff in those incomplete parts... they fear that error will come flooding into the church. Indeed it is true that these ambiguities are places where error likes to leak in. But error will always be present in the church for the simple reason that error is born and lives in the hearts of men, not in doctrine. It can affect our doctrine, but changing the doctrine rarely affects the error. If you make a complete system and close it off so that no doctrinal error can get in, then the error in your heart and mine will simply go subterranean and become all the more difficult to find. We will walk around saying the right things while continuing to live a lie. Jesus made it clear, when He told us that the wheat and the tares will coexist, that the job of separating them does not fall into our hands. I'm not saying we shouldn't fight error - we must all fight against error... and we must start by fighting the error in our own hearts. We will understand then where to build, and where not to build, the defenses in the church. And if you think there is no error left in your heart, then you have fallen into the worst error yet.
You have to be willing for things to be out of your control, for things to be unfair, for you to not fully understand, for the next step to be unclear, for there to be mysteries in the Bible for which you can never seem to find the complete answer, for God to be beyond your comprehension, yet also intimately knowable with a knowledge that passes understanding. It is in these places that you will lean the most on your precious father and shepherd, and that is exactly by His design. Once you've started with the relationship, you'll want to learn all the more, but for all the right reasons.

"If knowing answers to life's questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables - of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and most of all, things unfair." - Madame Jeanne Guyon