The human soul is an arena for the tension between “rising” and “falling”. It can rise and it can fall. What is Good does not go along with Evil. They clash. “Bad things”, without knowing from where they come, proceed from you even though you are intrinsically bent towards what is good and are a dwelling for God. No other being nests in you. There is a transmittance into you of what is diabolic but there is also that which is divine until you are healed.
The matter is not one of good and evil tendencies that work themselves in the soul with one outweighing the other. The issue concerns what resides in your depths. The question the Lord pauses for you is: “Are you on my side, are you with me?” And the question is so for us on Judgment Day. The issue is not how well you have applied yourself to the Ten Commandments. These can only signify as to whether you are God’s friend or one of His enemies.
Your repentance in this life is not merely a transition of a moral nature from being “bad” to being “good”. This takes place through ongoing rigorous repentance; your repentance is a shift from your depravity to the presence of God; from you holding back from Him to His self-revelation to you. Being in evil, you cannot have your deeds acknowledged as good unless you seek God’s face; that is you enter into His love. Then He takes away your sins. The issue is not what you seek, but whom you seek. And if you happen to seek mercy, forgiveness and compassion, you are in fact seeking God; because your soul will not be satisfied except with Him. He fills all of His “beauties”. “And of His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”(John 1: 16). Thus there is a variety of “graces” bur they all proceed from the Divine Fullness. It is not an over statement if I say that the sinner moves from a state of rejection of God to one of befriending Him. Without that relationship we inherit nothing and we see nothing.
This close relationship removes the remoteness existing between your power and God’s. The closeness might develop to union; one between “the Creator” and “the created” in such a way that the relationship of worship of the Creator by the creature remains. Without this closeness you remain “thrown” purposelessly in this universe. So it is necessary that God intervenes with Man to bring about salvation.
God comes down to you with Divine Love. The only thing that can exist between you and Him is communication. Love is a bond of unity between us and God though each remains in his own statehood independent of the other. If you believe, you can bring yourself to this encounter with Him.
In a dialogue, the two dialoguing parties are equal and of the same standing. This is not the case in our relationship with the Lord unless He condescends to make us so in His love. This is so in Christianity because of the Incarnation. God, in the incarnation, has put upon Himself the mantle of equality with us. And that is a genuine and voluntary act of condescension on God’s part; this is met with an ascending act on our part. That is the type of “dialogue” between God and Man. In reality, that means surrendering yourself to Him and submitting to His Word.
In this dialogue, God does not “give and take” with you; He only commands you. And it is so in matters of sin and temptation. He commands you to “silence” temptation and to say “No” to sin the moment it springs up in your mind. You do not “give and take” with the devil. You only renounce him from the start. Do not discuss things with him; just renounce him. You take refuge in the Word of God only. Get filled with it in your heart so it flows in you and stand in the face of temptation so that you do not get in a dialogue with it (temptation).
The pleasure of sin can attract you. Only the light of Jesus, when it comes upon you, can pull you out of the attraction of pleasure to the joy of the intimacy with Christ. Thus you put away one pleasure for one that is greater. When the joy of the Lord draws you to Jesus, the choice (between sin and God) becomes easier. Rejoice in the Lord always so that your joy, having been made strong, becomes a source of resistance (to temptation) at times of trouble. You have to be intimate with the Lord so that He becomes your shelter and in that shelter you are helped.
Here comes the question about the training of the will. The human being is made strong every time one says “No” to temptation and seeks the power of the Holy Spirit. That is not only a training of the will; the Fathers tell us of the training of the “whole being” through asceticism, fasting, prayer and studying the Word of God.
Abstinence from eating and drinking and amusement and all that is not of benefit in the times we are in, makes us receptive of Grace. And being immersed in Grace, we become a “living word”, and we are empowered to reject what hinders His Word, and transforms us in feelings and thoughts to a divine mind and a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
Translated by Riad Moufarrij
Original Text: “الكلمة والروح” –An Nahar- 12.3.2011
