Bart's Blog

by Bart Denny There are moments in life when what we want most from God isn’t relief—it’s clarity. Many of us can endure pain more easily than we can endure not knowing why. When life goes dark, we instinctively reach for explanations. We tell ourselves that if God would just explain what He’s doing—if He would tell us the reason, the lesson, the purpose—then we could handle the rest. And so our prayers subtly change. They stop sounding like cries for help and start sounding like demands for answers: What did I miss? What are You trying to teach me? Why this? When the silence stretches on, something settles into our hearts. Not outright rebellion, but frustration mixed with confusion. We’re still praying. Still showing up. Still believing. But underneath it all is an assumption we rarely name: If I understood what God was doing, this would be easier. That assumption isn’t unique. It’s deeply human. We live in a world that runs on explanations. When something breaks, we diagnose it. Whe...

Psalm 30 and the Dark Night of the Soul by Bart Denny, Ph.D. Some of the hardest seasons in life don’t arrive with drama. They don’t come with a phone call in the middle of the night, a diagnosis, or a single moment when everything obviously falls apart. Instead, they come quietly. They sneak up on us. Life keeps moving. We still get up in the morning. We still go to work. We still participate in family life and say what we’re supposed to say. From the outside, everything looks mostly normal. But inside, something feels off. You wake up tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix. Joy feels muted. Prayer feels thinner than it used to. And what unsettles you most is that you can’t point to a single reason why. There’s nothing obvious to fix, no clear problem to solve, no crisis to explain. You’re still praying. Still trusting God. But you find yourself wishing God felt closer. Wishing His voice seemed louder. Centuries ago, the Spanish friar and poet, Saint John of the Cross, gave this experience ...

by Bart L. Denny, Ph.D. Text: Mark 9:14-29 Faith That Believes, but Can’t See Clearly Have you ever tried to drive through thick fog at night? You know the road is still there.  You know you’re headed in the right direction.  But you can’t see very far ahead. So you slow down. You grip the wheel a little tighter. And every decision feels heavier than it should. That’s a lot like what faith can feel like sometimes. I don’t know if this describes your experience, but there have been seasons in my life when I genuinely believed in God.  I believed He was real. That He was good.  I believed He had the power to act, and that He was working through all things for my good.  And at the same time, I struggled to see clearly what He was doing.  I still prayed. I still showed up.  I still tried to do what I knew was right.  But there were nights when I went to bed wondering why nothing seemed to be changing. Belief was still there… But clarity wasn’t. The ...

by Bart Denny Read: Philippians 4:4–9 Most of us know what it feels like when life doesn’t suddenly explode—but slowly gets heavier. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just… weighty. You’re still functioning. Still showing up. Still doing what needs to be done. But inside, it feels like the walls are closing in, and the pressure keeps building. That experience is more common than we're comfortable admitting in church. And it’s exactly the place where the Apostle Paul speaks in Philippians 4. Paul’s words in Philippians 4 matter because they weren't written from comfort. They were written from confinement; Paul was in prison as he wrote this letter to a church under pressure from the threat of persecution. Faithful People Still Feel the Weight One of the quiet lies many Christians believe is this: If my faith were stronger, I wouldn’t feel this anxious. But Scripture doesn’t support that assumption. Even faithful Christians can feel overwhelmed. Even prayerful people can lie awake at night...