Faith is a gift of God

 

O LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Good Morning

 Faith is a gift of God. Only he can bestow it, and it is a gift that he passionately desires to give us. However, he can only give it to us if we ask for it. When we ask for faith, we are turning our face towards his face, and he can look into our heart. He loves to see us facing him, but we for some reason try to avoid this. Even while begging him for favors, we close the eyes of our soul, so as to avoid looking at him. 

Yet he is always looking at us, with deep love. It is faith that allows us to enter peacefully into the dark night each of us faces at one time or another. Faith walks simply, like a child, between the darkness of human life and the hope of what is to come, “for eye has not seen, nor ear heard what God reserves for those who love him.” Faith is a kind of folly, a folly of God himself. Faith breaks through barriers. When our face is turned to God in faith, our eyes meet his, and each day becomes more luminous. 


The veil between God and us becomes thinner and thinner, until it seems we can almost reach out and touch him.  “For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38–39 -(God in the Nitty-Gritty Life) 

"When the Environment becomes Toxic"

By way of introduction, the following Scriptures: 

• "pray that God would open a door" - Col. 4:3
• "Knock and it shall be opened unto you" - Mt. 7:7
• "I am the door" - Jn. 10:7,9.
• "For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries" - 1Cor. 16:9

When one perceives that the environment has become menacing, capable of smothering or perverting what good one has, it is better to go elsewhere.  In its first sense to take flight is to change locale, environment, lifestyle.  There is no pleasure to be found in dead-end situations. Sometimes a person, or group is not healthy to be around and this can and has included Church people and groups. Jobs, career choices, hobbies, pastimes and certainly the media must be scrutinized for toxicity. 

When gossip or superiority chatter arises I quietly get up from the table and go elsewhere. Amazingly, they most often don't realize I've left.  Sometimes when Christianity ceases to be Christian our only recourse  is what its alway been, to love and to pray.  

The ancient monks left the world because they saw no other way out but death.  Yet, a strange desire made them think that they were not born simply to die, but that another space, "whether in the body or out of the body" (2 Cor. 12:3) awaited them.  The physical desert is located at the frontiers of space and time.  There is "nothing" to see, "nothing" to find.  It's a good place for light. 

If the desert fathers have often mentioned flight from the world as the point of departure for salvation, they have insisted still more on this flight as fleeing towards Someone! The philosopher Plotinus spoke of the flight "of the alone to the Alone".  - They had a desire to know as they were known (1Cor. 13:12).  Their solitude is not a rejection of society but a contribution to it.  Its not a matter of us leaving the world as it is that the world left us.  

Above all the desert father fled towards Someone.  This is the spiritual meaning of flight.  It is the affirmation of transcendence, that there is something  in this world that is not of this world, that the world does not contain within itself. 

Now there is another side to what I've said, i.e. there are times when we are to go into the midst of the world, into its violence, despair and panicked greed.  

"I must needs go through Samaria" (Jn. 4:4)

This has been a principle for a number of people, they've seen, and rightly so, the need to infiltrate areas of greatest need as a resident force of prayer.  As they bust through borders, their belongings are simple and few:  Bible, Beads and a compass. 

 You can find these people in the middle of war zones, when and where countries have closed down. They are also to be seen in factories, offices, city centers, on buses and trains.  They quietly go about their business and life praying the Way, Name and Life of Jesus.  They embrace what we call the "Poorer Means" 

Pray the path you walk and walk the path you pray,

                                                                        -Seraphim