Lectio
“O my God! What harm is done in the world by considering our actions of only little importance and by thinking something can be done against You in secret! I am certain that great evils would be avoided if we were to understand that the whole matter lies not in our guarding ourselves against men but in our guarding ourselves against displeasing You.”
— Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life
Meditatio
Quite often, the choices we must make on the path of spiritual union with God are not between what is good and what is evil, but between what is good and what is holy — that is, between what is good and what pleases God. It is good to please the people around us and it is good to seek pleasure for ourselves, and that which pleases others and that which brings us pleasure is not always inherently evil.
When David made the decision to stay behind as his troops went off to war, he did not intentionally and knowingly choose what was evil over what was good. Rather, he chose what was good — to take a much deserved break, to rest, and to enjoy his kingdom — over that which was holy, that which pleases the Lord. Scripture does not tell us that he inquired of the Lord before making this decision, as he did so many times before this.
And it did not end there. One choice toward that which was good over that which pleased God made room for the next: to look a little longer than he should have at Bathsheba, to ask after her name, to send for her, to commit adultery and eventually murder. Evil rarely announces itself as evil. It accumulates, one good but unholy choice at a time, each one a small distance from the Lord, until the distance is no longer small and we can no longer hear His still, small voice because we are no longer listening for it.
It was not so different for Aaron, who watched the people grow frightened and impatient in the absence of their leader, and who gave them, in their fear, exactly what they asked for rather than what God had commanded — a god they could see, made from what they were willing to give. He did not set out to forge an idol. He set out to keep the peace. And when he was asked to account for what he had done, he pointed not to his own choosing but to Moses’ — and by extension, God’s — absence, as though an unseen prophet and an unseen God are any less real or any more of a reason to disobey, and thereby displease, the Lord.
And so it is with our lives. What begins as a seemingly harmless decision, as something that seems or feels good, leads us to another such decision, and then another, until we find ourselves alone in a wilderness of despair, estranged from grace, alien to the person God created us to be — ashamed like Adam and Eve, sewing fig leaves together because they could no longer bear to be seen as they were, hiding among the trees of the garden when they heard the Lord walking; lying like Cain, who could not answer a simple question about his brother honestly, who thought a voice crying out from the ground might somehow stay unheard; certain, like David, that something could be done against the Lord in secret. But nothing ever has been, and nothing ever will.
And yet the same Lord who sees us when we believe ourselves hidden is the Lord who looks at us with a kind of love we struggle to understand because His love knows none of the conditions, limitations, or capriciousness that our love tends to have. It is the kind of love that, no matter what we do and no matter where we hide, gently calls us into the light — into itself.
God does not ask that we never choose the easier good again. He knows we will. He asks only that, like the prodigal son, when we have had enough of the good that the world has to offer, we hear at last the voice that was calling us all along, and turn back to Him — to the Father who is already watching for us, who is already running to meet us before we cover half the distance home.
He asks that we return to the posture of holiness that David once knew and later forgot, Paul’s posture, the posture of unceasing prayer that is perpetual listening and perpetual responding, that inquires of the Lord and aims only to please Him, even if that means disappointing others or deferring immediate pleasure for something eternal. For to please Him in this way may cost us the approval we had been so quietly seeking in the finite and the temporal. That which pleases the Lord may be unpleasing to others. It may be unpleasant for us. To please Him is not to please the world or to please ourselves. Like Christ’s cup, that which is holy rarely feels good in the way the fruit of the forbidden tree pleases us at first bite. It is, simply, holy.
Oratio
Light Within Darkness
You are the voice
above all voices
the light
within all darkness
the whisper
heard in silence
that calls us to itself
yet we wander
through the desert
worshipping
idols of our making
crying for attention
squandering our treasure
demanding to see Your face
Your love
it does not waver
Your gaze
it never wanders
we are the object
of Your affection
called back to Yourself
Contemplatio
What good are you quietly choosing today that is leading you away from what is holy — and can you hear the voice that has been calling you back all along?
Related Scripture
“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
— Psalm 139:11-12 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Desire God Alone: The Cloud of Unknowing and the Freedom of Letting Go, which turns the same desire for what pleases us toward its proper end — wanting God alone, rather than the small unholy pleasures that lead us away from Him.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
Leave a Reply