From Jerry Moye's Praying with the Saints
... God longs for the love of God's world... If God lives with longing, why should we demand instant gratification of our desires?
... Humans are not the controlling or initiating agents of love. We cannot claim to have the infallible way to make God always present according to out timetables and agendas. All mature saints speak of a dark night of the soul, of dry periods of prayer, of feelings of desertion or emptiness. Julian accepted the dry periods and the times without visions, as well as the times if beautiful revelations.
She provides a wise safeguard for careless evangelists who promise immediate gratification for deep basic needs and who imply there is a way to possess infinite God. Julian also gives us a view that is contrary to the values of our consumer age. We can easily be misled to believe there is a quick fix for every problem or instant gratification for every need. The longing of a vital relationship with God, however, is not met quickly by guaranteed methods of knowing the right techniques or having the right answers.
God chooses to work through methods of prayer and concepts of religion, but God is not limited to our frantic struggles with these. We learn to do prayers of silence as well as articulation. We learn to offer up our longings as well as our prayers of thanksgiving for what we have experiences. We accept the pain of longing, for it is also joy.
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