Anfechtung is a German word for which there is no English equivalent. It is the word Martin Luther used to portray His many trials, struggles and afflictions. It can describe a trial sent by God to test a man or an assault by the devil to destroy a man. It is doubt, turmoil, panic, despair, desolation and desperation all rolled into one.
However, anfechtung is not a wholly negative experience, for, in Luther’s own words, “Without it no man can understand scripture, faith, the fear or the love of God. He does not know hope who was never subject to temptations… (David) could not have had such profound insights if he had not experienced great assaults.”
A few well-known Biblical experiences of anfechtung are Joseph in prison, Job among the ashes, David in the wilderness, Jonah in the whale and Jesus in Gethsemane. Who can say that God did not use these experiences in tremendous ways? Indeed I have written to encourage all God’s children to endure “the dark night of the soul” for it is the best and perhaps the only way into the depths of the knowledge of God.
If upon reading this you would say that it is too dark or too negative or that God would not allow such a thing, I can only say that if there is hope or light in the midst of it, then it is not anfechtung. And that faith is no faith that can see light at the end of the tunnel.
Robert Nicholson 2003
“There is more faith in an ounce of doubt than there is in a hundred pounds of doctrine”
-Unknown
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