The Dark Night that Waits for the Dawn

I just wanted to ask you something.  Have there ever been times in your life--especially following a period of joyful obedience or spiritual accomplishment when suddenly you just can't work up a stitch of enthusiasm spiritually?  Where the Word of  God loses its appeal  and all that you've "accomplished" is worthless and you feel like the ground under your feet is crumbling away as you stand on the edge of a pit too wide to be jumped ...is it really the enemy? Or is it the Dark Night of the Soul and thus the work of the Spirit and a testing by God  (NOT a temptation by God because we know that God doesn't  tempt man to do wrong.)  This is NOT a temptation to do wrong--it's a temptation to do nothing. It's the temptation of a cold heart. A spiritual silence in the ears of your soul .And you think back and you analyze what could this have possibly come from...what wrong have I done?  And you hear a whisper--it is not the wrong you have done, although the enemy would like you to think that.....NO this is the testing of the right  you have done.  Will it withstand the burning branding of your soul? Will you "take up and read" like St Augustine?  Will you pick up your mat and walk? Will you, like Mary, sit at my feet in my presence and just BE and listen?  Will  you break a box of Nard? Will you build an Ebenezer?

And if I do not? Then some portion of my soul dies to some potential that it might have become.  This is a time not to do work for the Lord but to sing to  him, to worship. To listen. To be embraced and to embrace.  To TREASURE the One who is our great and glorious reward. And then when the next task or inspiration comes there will be the scent of Christ surrounding it.