We must not be surprised at even the greatest defects in good souls. We must quietly leave them alone until God gives the signal of gradual removal. Otherwise we will pull up the wheat with the tares. Even in the most advanced souls, God leaves certain weaknesses entirely disproportionate to their eminent state. The situation is like workmen who are excavating soil from a field. Typically, they leave remaining certain pillars of earth to indicate the original level of the surface. In this manner, they can gauge the amount of material they have removed. In the same way, God leaves pillars of testimony to the extent of His work in even the most godly souls.
~François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Philippians 1
Oh beloved, it is true. And if you do not know it yet, you will.
In Christ, we are perfect. We need do nothing to be this either. We have been put into Christ and there is no flaw within us. None. The problem is that it takes the believer (usually) an entire lifetime to understand this. And along the way, we keep asserting our belief that our perfection is impossible.
And so, we continue down a path of pain. Our flaws nag at us and flair up, leaving a wake of spiritual turbulence that blocks people’s view of the only One who matters. Just as we believe we have gotten a handle on something, we lose it.
Our patience
Our purity
Our hope
Our strength
Our faith
Our obedience
Our wonder
Our vision
Our zeal.
Oh, we have moved beyond (hopefully) our childish blaming and raging at the G_d who has likely accelerated another fall. We have learned (hopefully) that His allowing us to trip ourselves up is not because He is fickle and likes to punish. But we do wonder (a lot) whether we are ever going to grow up and actually take on the behavior of a fully mature son or daughter of The Kingdom for which we are being trained.
But in the meantime, we struggle and we hurt and we yearn.
Can we see it? The beauty in all of this pain is not that we keep having it. The beauty is in that it shows how far beyond our wildest dreams He is. The purest state of attainment in us is nothing compared to the infinite simplicity of our G_d.
But it goes further.
These monuments of our failures really are mile markers on a path towards a destination beyond our wildest dreams. This same G_d is making us like Himself. He really is making us more and more like Him each day. And it really is like each moment of failure is an offloading of bilge within us that is not like Him.
So, are you feeling the pain of your past beloved? Good. Take a good look at the pain and see it for what it really is though. They are memorials of His goodness in your life, and very soon even these will pass into history – melting as does snow in the coming spring.
Tonight is your night. Time to let your pain give its praise to G_d for the future that awaits you in Him.
The Trappist monk Thomas Keating once said, “The cross Jesus asked you to carry is yourself. It’s all the pain inflicted on you in your past and all the pain you’ve inflicted on others.” I believe that’s true. My cross suddenly became too heavy. I couldn’t carry it. I just couldn’t.
~Brennan Manning
