Dependence On God

An inner light warms and pricks to life the cold, tired, congealed soul who waits attentively upon it. But what does it mean to "wait", in a spiritual sense?

To wait is, in fact, to do nothing, perchance to be obliterated.

What every soul entering the inward chambers of the spirit discovers for itself is the simple reality of God's grace; the reality that it is not the creature who prays to God, but God who prays for us in our own depths, and that our proper orientation is not to speak to him, but by him; to listen quietly for those divine stirrings which are already being offered up for us by God in the depths of our souls.

Nothing causes prayer to dry up, -- or, rather, nothing shuts our ears to the everflowing streams of prayer within, -- so quickly as the thought that one is praying and is the source of prayer.

Humility is perhaps the first condition for true receptivity, but the self-conscious conviction that the spiritual life depends upon ourselves and our own decision to respond to the inward call is born of pride. Yet, how many self-professed Christians, for all their talk of Christ, see salvation as dependent upon man; that is, upon themselves, their own choice, and on the choices of others? Far from a heroic act of free will, by which we take the  kingdom by storm, and force our own will into alignment with the will of God, the authentic prayer, like the authentic conversion, is one of inaction.

There is one thing in us capable of willing what God wills for us, and that is the will of God in us. Ours is merely to submit. But can one will oneself not to will? Of course not, since that would also be an act of will. The abdication of self-will in submission to the will of God is purely the work of God. When grace does appear to be withheld, it is only the lawful result of the soul's attempt to take credit for grace. Grace is anathema to man's will, and the more one seeks to generate spiritual force by one's own volition the more spiritual force is dissipated.

How then shall we proceed? The only way we can. Stumblingly. For our will is a stumbling block, over which we continually stumble until, utterly in spite of ourselves, we fall upon our knees and into the arms of the Father.

The prerequisite for receptivity to grace is the confession of our own insufficiency. We cannot open to receive the infinite while taking pride in what is finite. All creatures are, in some sense, rebellious to the One who creates. In order to be reborn, it is first necessary to die. We must be consumed, as it were, in the flames of our own personal hell (the flames of pride), before we may rise from the ashes of humility into a new life in Jesus Christ.