How Does God speak to us?
19 Sunday Year A
August 13, 2017
How does God speak to us? God didn’t speak to Elijah through the fire or earthquake or strong driving wind, but in a small whispering voice. God speaks to us through the interior movements of our soul. Of all the saints that help us know how God speaks in our soul, I thought of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
St. Ignatius was born in 1491. He became a soldier and at the age of 30 he was badly wounded in a battle. He was struck by a cannonball. One leg was broken and the other badly mangled. He returned to Loyola to begin the process of healing and during the time he was confined to bed. To pass the time, Ignatius asked for something to read. Ignatius was accustomed to reading books about war and chivalry and the pursuit of worldly glories but the only thing available was a book on the life of Christ and a book on the life of the saints. He reluctantly began to read these books and that began the process of his conversion.
He discovered that when he thought about the pursuit of worldly things: riches and women and the glories of war, he found that he delighted in these thoughts, but after he stopped thinking about them he was left feeling dry and discontent.
But, on the other hand, when he thought about being a great saint like Francis or Dominic, this too delighted him, andafterhe stopped thinking about them, he was left with feelingsof consolation and inner peace.
From these experiences, St. Ignatius wrote his rules on the discernment of spirits. These rules help us discern how God, the Good Spirit is at work in our soul,but also help us discern how the bad spirit works on us.
St. Ignatius tells us if we are going the wrong way, if we headed away from God, steeped in a life of sin, the evil spirit is going to pose sensual delights to us! The evil spirit wants to lull us into complacency proposing to us the pleasures of the world. But the Good Spirit will try to get us to move and change courseby stinging and biting our consciences.
St. Augustine is perhaps the most notorious sinner that became a saint. As a young man he was steeped in sexual sin. He was living with a woman outside of marriage and had a child with her. He was headed in the wrong direction. As he was headed away from God, it was the evil spirit that kept proposing to him sensual delights. He said he burned inside with passion. He felt this powerful interior movement toward unrestrained self-indulgence. Any thought of giving up sensual pleasure was quickly followed by thoughts of “You can’t give this up . . . forever!”
But inside his soul, he also experienced the workings of the Good Spirit. There was an interior emptiness as he twisted and turned in the chains of his slavery to sin. He felt a growing weariness of heart. Questions kept rising in his heart: “Are you really happy living this way? Can you continue to live with such inner emptiness? Isn’t life meant to be more than this? Why do you hurt those who love and need you, living the way you do? His mother St. Monica was deeply hurt by the way he was living. Such stirrings were the action of the Good Spirit. (The Discernment of Spirits by Timothy Gallagher p. 36-37)
Above all, God is a God of love. When we are headed in the wrong direction, God is the Hound of Heaven who will relentlessly pursue us until we surrender and are healed. People who live without God, experience this inner gloom and emptiness – they can often think – God has rejected me! But that inner gloom and emptiness is precisely a sure sign of God’s love which is stinging and biting to get the person to change their life! God never ceases to love us and call to himself. When we are headed in the wrong direction, that interior emptiness is the sure sign of God’s pursuit.
I had this experience in my own life. In 1990 I graduated from the University of Kansas with my degree in Civil Engineering. I was dating a girl that was living in Chicago and so I applied for jobs in the Chicago area so that I could move out to Chicago and live near my girlfriend. Upon graduation and accepting a job, one of the first things I did was buy a brand new car: a Pontiac Grand Prix. I had seemingly everything a person could want: a good job, a nice apartment in Chicago, a new car, a girlfriend, lots of disposable income as a single person, money for entertainment and travel. But I was headed in the wrong direction. I wasn’t going in the direction God wanted me to go and I began to experience in my soul an emptiness: something was missing. I was not fulfilled. I kept thinking there has to be something more to life. It was this inner feeling of desolation and unfulfillment that made me start thinking maybe I’m headed in the wrong direction. This was the way the Good Spirit, was calling me to the priesthood.
On the other hand, St. Ignatius says if our fundamental direction is toward God, if we are trying to follow Jesus and serve the Lord, then it is the evil spirit who is going to place obstacles in our way to try to discourage us. The evil spirit will propose doubts, worries, and anxieties to make us think the pursuit of holiness is beyond our grasp. “Who do you think you are? Remember all your past sins? You’ll never change. You really don’t know how to pray. In fact you’ve never really experienced God. The Good Spirit, on the other hand, will encourage and strengthen us. What did Jesus say to Peter? “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid.”
Peter in the gospel is heading in the right direction. He is walking toward Jesus. But, then he noticed the wind and the waves. The waves represent all the worries and anxieties of life, all the obstacles the devil will try to use to distract us from Jesus. And what happens when Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus and focuses on the waves? He begins to sink! Here’s the point of the gospel: keep your eyes on Jesus! If we are trying to follow Jesus, the devil will do anything to distract us: look at the waves! Stop looking at Jesus! Focus on all your problems and worries and anxieties! Lose your peace! If we are feeling overwhelmed it is a sure sign that we have taken our eyes off of Jesus and we need to re-focus. We need to return to prayer! Sometimes our first and most basic prayer is simply a cry for help: Jesus save me! Lord, help me!
In his book, Searching for and Maintaining Peace, Jacque Phillipe says for those moving toward Christ, any thought that disturbs our peace is a bad thought! A psychologist once told me: thoughts precede feelings. So, if I focus on the waves, on thoughts of anxiety, it should be no surprise that I feel anxious. Controlling our thoughts becomes an important discipline in our spiritual lives.
One of my favorite passages in the bible is Philippians Chapter 4. St. Paul says: “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Notice the qualifier: always. Even in times of turbulence! Even when we are on the stormy seas! He goes on to say, “Have no anxiety at all.” For the follower of Christ there is no reason to worry! What God wants most is our trust. Why do you doubt, you of little faith?
Be aware of the whisper of God’s voice. God is always pursuing us: stinging and biting when we are headed in the wrong direction, consoling and encouraging as we walk toward him. As we continue our journey let us keep our eyes on Jesus for in doing so we can do things beyond our imagining . . . even walking on water!