Difficulty in Believing in Divine Providence
 |
| (Picture found here) |
It is important to know one thing: We cannot experience this
support from God unless we leave Him the necessary space in which He can
express Himself. I would like to make a comparison. As long as a person who
must jump with a parachute does not jump out into the void, he cannot feel that
the cords of the parachute will support him, because the parachute has not yet
had the chance to open. One must first jump and it is only later that one feels
carried. And so it is in spiritual life: ‘God gives in the measure that we
expect of Him,’ says Saint John of the Cross. And Saint Francis de Sales says: ‘The
measure of Divine Providence acting on us is the degree of confidence that we
have in it.’ This is where the problem lies. Many do not believe in Providence
because they’ve never experienced it, but they’ve never experienced it because
they’ve never jumped into the void and taken the leap of faith. They never give
it the possibility to intervene. They calculate everything, anticipate
everything, they seek to resolve everything by counting on themselves, instead
of counting on God. The founders of religious orders proceed with the audacity
of this spirit of faith. They buy houses without having a penny, they receive
the poor although they have nothing with which to feed them. Then, God performs
miracles for them. The checks arrive and the granaries are filled. But, too
often, generations later, everything is planned, calculated. One doesn’t incur
an expense without being sure in advance to have enough to cover it. How can
Providence manifest itself? And the same is true in the spiritual life. If a
priest drafts all his sermons and his talks, down to the least comma, in order
to be sure that he does not find himself wanting before his audience, and never
has the audacity to begin preaching with a prayer and confidence in God as his
only preparation, how can he have this beautiful experience of the Holy Spirit,
Who speaks through his mouth? Does the Gospel not say, ...do not worry about
how to speak or what you should say; for what you are to say will be given to
you when the time comes; because it will not be you who will be speaking, but
the Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you (Matthew 10:19-20)?
Let us be very clear. Obviously we do not want to say that
it is a bad thing to be able to anticipate things, to develop a budget or
prepare one’s homilies. Our natural abilities are also instruments in the hands
of Providence! But everything depends on the spirit in which we do things. We
must clearly understand that there is an enormous difference in attitude of
heart between one, who in fear of finding himself wanting because he does not
believe in the intervention of God on behalf of those who lean on Him, programs
everything in advance to the smallest detail and does not undertake anything
except in the exact measure of its actual possibilities, and one who certainly
undertakes legitimate things, but who abandons himself with confidence in God
to provide all that is asked of him and who thus surpasses his own
possibilities. And that which God demands of us always goes beyond our natural
human possibilities!”
~Jacques Philippe
Comments