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Holding onto Grace: Keeping the Memory of Our Encounters with God
One of the most common struggles in the spiritual life is consistently finding spiritual traction. It is easy to feel like we have lost God in the dark shadows cast by this world. Staying in the light is a life-long endeavor. Many of us have periods where we feel spiritually sharp and in a good place, only then to experience inevitably a loss of spiritual direction and momentum. This loss can be felt profoundly. We often feel as though we have lost our way. We can begin to flounder as our prayer life and behavior begin to decline. Many of the saints have reported experiencing these cycles. They would describe them as departures of God’s grace. It would indeed return, only to depart again eventually. When we have God’s grace we feel a profound peace. We feel settled, grounded, focused, and perceptive, as though God is right there to be accessed at any moment. A departure of grace is the loss of this sense of things.
St. Silouan the Athonite would grieve these departures of grace intensely, almost to the point of despair. For each saint perhaps there was a different lesson intended. For St. Silouan there was a lesson being taught by God. It was to practice acceptance of these departures of grace and not to assign too much meaning to them. In other words, for him not to be alarmed and to trust that in the end, God will take care of Him. St. Silouan lived in a monastery, so perhaps he was more sheltered from the dangerous consequences (such as certain sins) when these departures of grace occurred. For us in the world, due to the ready availability of destructive vices, the consequences could be far worse.
I recall being at Holy Cross Seminary in Boston, where Bishop Gerasimos had lived and had passed away shortly before I arrived. A professor there shared a story. He had been walking on the beach with this bishop. As they walked, Bishop Gerasimos observed the waves. He remarked, “Do you see the waves, how they come and go? That is what God’s grace is like; it comes to us in waves.” However, we might ask, must it always come in waves? The answer is No. It is indeed possible to experience the grace of God consistently. As we reflect on these things, we might be tempted to believe that God shows favoritism; that perhaps He favors some over others, and showers his grace on some more than others. Inevitably this is true, but not because He loves some more than others, but because some of us are more receptive of God’s grace than others. God seeks an intimacy with us that few are willing to give. It is precisely this lack of intimacy with God that causes us to spiritually flounder.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus encounters Nicodemus. He tells him, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it goes or where it comes from. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Those of us who were baptized are indeed born of the Spirit. However, at some point we reject that Spirit and choose the spirit of this world. For most of us, this is just temporary, and we return to the Holy Spirit. However, for some it is permanent. Those who are born of the Spirit and stay with the Holy Spirit are as mysterious as the blowing of the wind. The wind is indeed mysterious. We hear it, but cannot see it. We feel it, but cannot grasp its origin, nor know where it is going. It can be a gentle breeze or it can profoundly affect our environment. One of the ways in which this mystery plays out in us is that, at any given moment, the Holy Spirit may surprise us and redirect our will, time, and attention so that we participate in a miraculous act of God.
Of course, this requires the ability to suffer inconvenience. For example, when we meet one of the least of Christ’s brethren on the street, time stops and he or she becomes our master, and all other earthly activity is put on hold. At that moment a great mystery is unfolding, and we are invited to participate.
If we are of the Spirit, staying true to the Holy Spirit, and not having spiritual infidelity with the spirit of this world, then there is a certain balance we maintain.We have one foot in this world and one foot in the Kingdom of God. Our senses, our thoughts, our attention, our motives are all centered on God and the Kingdom of God, while simultaneously our physical responsibilities and needs are centered on this world. God’s grace enables us to maintain this equilibrium. We struggle spiritually when this equilibrium is lost.
To hold onto God’s grace, we need something concrete (though not necessarily physical) to grasp.
THE KEY TO HOLDING ONTO GOD’S GRACE AND MAINTAINING THIS EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN GRACE AND THIS WORLD IS GOD’S ENERGIES. GOD’S ENERGIES ARE HIS ACTIVITIES.
It is how we experience God. We experience God’s grace through sacraments, but also through surprise encounters with God in which His activity manifests itself in our lives. These are the encounters we need. These encounters create memories in us, memories that hold us to the spiritual work and become sources of hope. They become storybook of our encounters with God and the Holy Spirit. It can be as though each of us, throughout our lives, has accumulated our own personal bible of encounters with God and His energies. There should be little doubt that the Apostles’ memories of God’s energies at work helped sustain them during difficult times. How could it not be so? After witnessing the resurrection appearances, witnessing countless other miracles, and after participating in so many miracles themselves, those memories inevitably became sources of encouragement during challenging times.
So it should be for us. As the Apostle John wrote, “And there were many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” Those signs may not have made into the Scriptures, but they made it into the hearts of the disciples and became engraved in their memory. Each disciple possessed his own book of memories of his own experiences with God’s energies. We are called to do the same.
Some of us may doubt our ability to experience a miracle, much less participate in one. Signs and miracles involving God’s activity, however, are sometimes more subtle than we realize. Signs and miracles do not always occur in some spectacular fashion. Sometimes we do not realize them until years later. When we read the Scriptures, we see that God’s energies are so often made manifest in encounters, encounters between people. If we do not do well with people, then this can be a problem. This is why the healing work is so important. If we cannot love and be loved fully, then we risk missing out on these encounters, for we are far too distracted and blinded by fear, need for control, and mistrust. We begin our day with prayer, and then we have to move through our days with our heads up (not buried in our phones); observing others, not judging them (but rather making excuses for them); being aware of all others in our environment; pondering their life stories and what hardships they carry; in essence, being ready at a moment’s notice to respond to an encounter that very well might be an encounter with God Himself through His energies. We become like a radio hobbyist who sits, with ears tuned to the static of his or her radio, listening for a clear message that might come through. When we live like this, the Holy Spirit takes notice. We have then made ourselves a vessel of God’s energies, one that God can act through at any given moment as He deems fit. If we hold ourselves in this watchful state, we can experience miracles and be participants in them. We will find that God’s grace no longer is elusive, or cycling in and out of our lives, for it becomes part of us.
It is important to note that when miracles occur in encounters, it is for the benefit of both. We must be careful not to proceed in an ego-centric mindset, where we believe that a miracle only occurs for our sake. Miracles involving encounters benefit both. This is consistent with the love of God. So, we see that miracles (encounters with God’s energies) occur more often than we realize. They can range from positive resolutions of situations that defy the physics of this world to people entering our life at just the right moment, for the benefit of both. Detecting the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives requires awareness. Always remember, however, not to be ego-centric or self-centered in perceiving His intentions. It is not always about us. Sometimes it can be just about us; such is God’s love for us.
It is precisely these memories of encounters with God’s energies that we use to write the storybook of our relationship with God. Each of us is called to have our own library of memories from our encounters with God. The memories of these encounters can be the wind in our spiritual sails that provides hope and encouragement each time we recall them. They also keep God’s grace as our ever-present companion. If we live like this, then departures of God’s grace can become a distant memory.
Fr. Joshua has authored books available from Ancient Faith Ministries.
