Fear and trust: Psalm 27

Psalm 27 is mainly a psalm of petition, and its petitions flow from a profound faith in a caring God. Once again we meet “God the Teacher” and “God the Protector” as we did in Psalm 25. The Psalmist is living in a dangerous world constantly at war with foes and enemies and “an army camped against me.” (v. 3).

We might not be involved in any particular war in a literal sense (although millions of Christians are in such a situation right now), but isn’t it true that in one sense or another we are engaged in a struggle or in combat with the enemies of our peace, our striving for God, and our living in faith? In all of this, God is at our side.

The Psalmist has great confidence in God and in what He can do, and this psalm becomes an urgent appeal for God’s mercy and assistance.

The Lord is my light and my help;

whom shall I fear?

·         These first two lines of the psalm can provide us with food and insight for a lifetime. I am especially drawn to the second line, whom shall I fear? So many times, our peace of mind is disturbed by fears that we have. Meditate on this. Ask the Lord to reveal to you how much of your thinking and acting may be subtly based on fear.  I know someone who had some real difficulties but who was afraid to go and talk to his superiors about them. Finally he got the courage to speak up, and the situation was resolved quickly and decisively. Are you held back by certain fears? This might be a perfect verse for you.

Though an army encamp against me

my heart would not fear.

Though war break out against me

even then would I trust. (v 3)

·         Pray for such trust at every moment of every day. Let go of a situation and trust in God to take care of it for you. A director once said to me, “What are you worried about? This entire situation is on God’s hands and He is going to deal with it at the right time.”

There is one thing I ask of the Lord,

for this I long,

to live in the house of the Lord,

all the days of my life. . . .

For there he keeps me save in his tent

in the day of evil.

He hides me in the shelter of his tent,

on a rock he sets me safe.  (v 4-5)

·         We might not be able to sleep on the sanctuaries of our churches all our days, but what we can do is allow our loving and caring and protecting God to hold us in an eternal embrace. It says in Psalm 57, in the shadow of your wings I take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by. Rest there today if you’d like.

God bless you!

Hope in God alone

Advice from the Russian Orthodox mystics is probably something you heard or read before, but if you are like me, you need constant reminders and encouragement. So I offer you little summary of the writings of Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894).*

What is essential is that you lay all your hope in God. When it comes to the spiritual life, you cannot obtain anything on your own, and all your efforts and good works will not help you reach your goal of union with God unless and until He grants it to you. This takes so much pressure off of us. All we need do is pray from the heart, ask for what we seek, and continue praying until God grants it to us. The Orthodox Fathers particularly recommend the Jesus Prayer as a constant mantra; Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me.

It is possible to say the prayer so often that eventually it arises in your heart almost automatically, but it is important that we not say it mechanically and without meaning. Theophan quotes the wonderful lines from Psalm 37:3-4, If you trust in the Lord and do good, then you will live in the land and be secure. If you find your delight in the Lord, he will grand your heart’s desire.

He speaks of the acquisition of virtue in the same way. A man who suffers from the vice of anger, he says, may by his own efforts acquire some control over it. “. . . how far will he get by his own efforts? No farther than outward silence during bouts of anger, with only such quelling of the rage itself as self-control can afford him. He can never himself attain the complete extinction of his anger and the establishment of meekness in his heart. This only happens when grace invades the heart and itself places meekness there. **

The same is true of every virtue and spiritual quality. We must seek earnestly, but realize that our own efforts to bear fruit will come to nothing. We must put all our trust in the Lord who will give us what we desire so earnestly.

I don’t know about you but I find this very encouraging and consoling at the same time. There is no reason to get impatient or even hate myself because of a particular weakness I may be trying to avoid. I can’t get it by my own efforts only. Now that doesn’t mean that I should not bother to try. I must keep trying, knowing that the ultimate victory will come when the Lord grants it to me.

In a way, the pressure is off about this and about so many other things.

Undoubtedly you will hear more from Theophan in the days to come as I continue to may my way through his writings.

May the blessings of the risen Lord descend upon you and keep you in all your ways.

*I discovered his writings in a book named The Art of Prayer: an orthodox anthology compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo.

** p. 112

God is waiting to help you

We might profit from a passage we read at daytime office today:

For thus says the Lord God,

the Holy One of Israel:

By waiting and by calm you shall be saved,

in quiet and in trust your strength lies.  (Isaiah:30:15)

This was addressed to the people of Israel, but they didn’t heed his words. Instead, they took matters into their own hands and sought help not from the Lord but from another nation in alliance with them, and their action let to disaster. And all the while, the Lord was telling them to wait. He would deliver them.

Yet the Lord is waiting to show you favor,

and he rises to pity you;

For the Lord is a God of justice:

blessed are all who wait for him!  (Isaiah 30:18)

Keep this in mind: The Lord is waiting to show you favor. He is waiting for you to stop worrying and planning what to do and open yourself to His action and assistance. Don’t forget: in quiet and trust your strength lies.

Get quiet. For those who live out in the world and not in convents and monasteries, it is so difficult to find quiet, to find silence, to find an atmosphere conducive to contemplation. But please notice that this silence is a necessity, not a luxury.

And perhaps you might find the time to make a retreat, to spend a day or two at a monastery or retreat center, or go off to that cabin in the woods even though it is cold. Be active: make quiet time. Ask the Lord. He will help you.

God bless you.

Less worrying?

Those who have experienced or are experiencing a spiritual awakening tend to develop a loss of ability to worry. (The 7^th item on the list we have been discussing this year. The complete list is at the end of this reflection.)

The work we are doing to grow spiritually, whatever it may be, bears fruit in our lives. These consequences develop gradually and naturally over the course of time and can’t be rushed, or hurried, or stressed. We simply do the work, and experience the consequences that result.

This is particularly true of today’s item: a loss of ability to worry. How does this happen? It takes growth in our ability to trust that God is active in our lives at all times, that His love for us is total and unending, and that he works to bring good out of anything difficult that might occur. Never forget that his ultimate will for us is that we be saved and enter the Kingdom of Heaven for all eternity. Also remember what Saint Paul so beautifully said, that “everything works together for the good of those who love God.”  (Romans 8:28)

It can be helpful to look back over the landscape of our lives and see (even if only for the first time) how God has guided, sustained, blessed, healed, protected, comforted, inspired, and helped us in the past, and continues to do so in the present and for the future.

My own personal journey of growth in trust began in a special way when I discovered the 2^nd chapter of the Book of Sirach. Maybe it can help you as well:

Trust God and he will help you; make straight your ways and hope in him.

You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy, turn not away lest you fall.

You who fear the Lord, trust him, and your reward will not be lost.

You who fear the Lord, hope for good things, for lasting joy and mercy.

Study the generations long past and understand;

has anyone hoped in the Lord and been disappointed?

Has anyone persevered in his fear and been forsaken?

Has anyone called upon him and been rebuffed?  (Sirach 2:6-10)

One last thing: sometimes it might seem to us that we have been disappointed, or forsaken, or rebuffed by the Lord. Even then, however, do not give up hope. Time will show you that He is working to answer your prayer, although not in a way that you would have liked Him to satisfy you at the moment. Once again, I encourage you to look back over your life and see if you can find times when this has turned out to be true.

Think on these things. Pray about them. Journal about them. Continue your program of meditation. You will find yourself worrying far less; you will experience times of calm when everyone else is running around fretting and fearing. You will know peace. God bless you!

12 Signs that one is undergoing a spiritual awakening:

1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than to make things happen.

2. Frequent attacks of smiling.

3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature.

4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experiences.

6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

7. A loss of ability to worry.

8. A loss of interest in conflict.

9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

10. A loss of interest in judging others.

11. A loss of interest in judging self.

12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything in return.

Advent trust

We continue today with our Reflections on the verses of the hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

I encourage you to continue substituting your own name in place of the word “Israel” in order to make this wonderful hymn your own personal prayer.

Verse 4:

O Come, O Rod of Jesse’s stem.

From ev’ry foe deliver them

That trust your mighty power to save,

And give them victory o’er the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to you,

O [Israel].

The key word in this verse is trust. Do you, can you, trust that God will indeed deliver you from the enemies of your soul and of your peace, serenity, security and well-being? Ask God continually to increase your capacity to trust him. Look back over the landscape of your life and recall those times when he has, indeed, delivered you from something or someone that threatened to wreck havoc in your life. Give thanks for his great mercy to you, and build your trust in the present time on the realities you discover in your own past. More simply put: he has delivered you, he is delivering you (even if you aren’t aware of it) and he will deliver you.

In his prayer for the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis eloquently points out to us the kinds of deliverance that are described in the Gospels. Let the words of his prayer serve to increase our own faith and hope and trust:

Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money;

the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things;

made Peter weep after his betrayal,

and assured Paradise to the repentant thief.

Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman: ‘If only you knew the gift of God.’

Trust that the gift be given to you as well during this Advent season, in whatever way you need it. And, above all, remember that the greatest gift is yet to come: Our Lord is going to give each of us victory over the grave! Our physical death will be a temporary state for us and not the end of existence.

Pray for that trust as well.

Blessed  Advent to you.

A pre-Thanksgiving fantasy

The poor widow put two copper coins into the temple treasury and we are told that she gave away all that she had.

We have so much, and we would find it nearly impossible to give away everything that we had, just like the good young man who went away sadly from the Lord because he was rich and the Lord had encouraged him to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor.

But could we give away just one small thing? Would it be possible to do that today? In the monastery we have a place where we can leave clothing to be distributed to the poor. I imagine that today I am going to sacrifice one piece of clothing for that collection. But what will I sacrifice? Will it be an old piece of clothing that I haven’t worn in years? Or might it be something that I like and that I wear often? The thought is difficult; giving away something that I use and like would be like tearing something away from my personhood, and find that in reaction to the thought of giving it away is to want to cling to it more tenaciously than ever. No, this is a silly idea. I think I will let it pass.

It is so difficult for we who have so much to separate ourselves from what we have. In a sense, I think it is true that what we have actually owns us rather than the other way around.

But imagine this: Imagine that you have indeed given away everything, keeping nothing back. And imagine that you are going to have to depend on God completely for anything else you need today. Is your faith strong enough to believe that you will be given what you need? Or would you tremble in panic?

And yet, even in the midst of so much opulence, at the very bottom of it all, it is God who gives us what we need when we need it---and realize that those needs are not necessarily material.

But God does supply all our needs, and the things that we think we need that have not been given are things which God knows we really do not need, or that God knows would end up being no good for us. This reminds me of a saying I once heard: “If you want to have what you need, then take delight in what you have.

And so here are a few rambling thoughts that might help us prepare spiritually for Thanksgiving when it occurs later this week in the United States.

Created for God

(Note: There will be no reflection on Wednesday, September 30


Continuing with paragraph 27 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“. . . we are created by God and for God and God never ceases to draw us to himself.”

Who are the people, the institutions, the circumstances that have served to draw you closer to God in your life? These are the means by which God draws you to himself. For me, among other things, it has been the music of J.S.Bach. For others, it might be a sculpture or other work of art, something they read, a realization that took place in the depths of their being. Sometimes it is through great difficulty that a person finally turns towards God; other times it a moment of happiness and rejoicing that elicits a prayer of thanksgiving.

The Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes) reminds us that “the invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being.” It also notes that one “cannot live fully according to the truth unless he freely acknowledges [God’s love for him] and entrusts himself to his creator.”

That’s a tall order, and, as we know, there are many people in the world and even in our own neighborhoods who would find those words hard to accept, or incomprehensible, or even objectionable.

But how about you? Today—this day---this very moment, can you be in touch with the reality of God’s love for you? Today---this day---this very moment, are you willing to entrust everything that is happening in your life to this God who created you and who loves you? Or is there perhaps some corner of your life or pocket in your thinking that you have not yet brought under the umbrella of his embrace?

What are you holding back? In that area, or thought, or circumstance, is there truly any peace in your spirit?

You have been created by God, you exist in order to be in communion with God, God holds you in existence, and he continually finds people and means to draw you closer to himself. And, in addition to this, God may actually be using you to draw other people closer to himself. Wow!

Too wonderful for me, this knowledge; so far, so high beyond my reach. (Psalm 139:6)

Faith-filled music

This morning I was playing an organ chorale by J.S. Bach based on an old Lutheran hymn “If thou but suffer God to guide thee.” (Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten). Here’s the text of the hymn:

If thou but suffer God to guide thee and hope in him through all thy ways,

He’ll give thee strength, whatever betide thee, and bear thee through the evil days.

Who trusts in God’s unchanging love builds on a Rock that naught can move.

It’s an intricate piece of music put together with the inspired craftsmanship of a great and faith-filled composer. There are two major little musical figures (called motifs) that are heard repeatedly through the chorale. Both are highly symbolic, and they are intertwined together. The first motif is FAITH. The second one is the most interesting because it signifies OVERWHELMING JOY.

Put the motifs together with the text and it is as if Bach were saying, “The times are rough. My faith is strong. God is with me and his love never fails. Therefore, despite the trials and difficulties of the moment, I am filled with joy. Thank you, Lord, for the faith that undergirds my joy.”

I thought about these themes as I was playing the music and suddenly realized that the Lord had provided me with excellent material for my daily reflection. And so you have it. Have a nice day.