from
Unseen Warfare
Saint Theophan the Recluse
Hoping in, and having Confidence
in God Alone
Even though, as we have mentioned, it is essential not to depend on our own strength in this unseen battle, however, if we simply surrender all hope of betterment and fall into despair without having found support, we are sure to take flight suddenly from the battle and we will be defeated by our foes and taken prisoner.
So, along with full renunciation of ourselves we should sow in our heart complete trust and confidence in God and full confidence in Him. Put another way, we should feel with all our heart that we can depend on no one but God, and that from Him alone, we can except all good things, all manner of assistance, and success.
Because we are nothing, we should accept nothing from ourselves, save falls and missteps, which make us give up all hope in ourselves. By contrast, we are sure always to be successful with God, if we equip our heart with a living trust in God and a steadfast certainty that we will obtain His aid. As it says in the psalm, 'In him my heart trusts and I am helped’ ( Ps. 28:7 ). These thoughts will aid you to have this hope and thus to receive help:
(1) Look for help from God, Who is all-powerful and can do whatever He wills, and so can also aid us.
(2) Look for help from God, Who is all-knowing and wise, knowing everything perfectly, and thus understanding exactly what is the best thing for the salvation of each person.
(3) Look for help from God, Whose goodness is infinite and Who draws near to us with indescribable love, being ever prepared each hour and moment to grant us the help we require for total success in the spiritual battle which happens within us, as soon as we flee with steadfast trust into the protection of His embrace. But how can it be that our good Shepherd, Who for three years sought the sheep which had wandered amiss, crying out so loudly that His throat was parched, and following roads so worn and full of thorns that He shed every drop of His blood and delivered His very life. How can it be, I say again, that now, if His sheep should follow after him, turning to Him with love and calling out to Him for help with hope, He would decline to cast His eyes on the sheep that had gone astray. How could He not take it into His divine embrace and, put it among the angels of heaven, and prepare a welcoming banquet for it? If our God never stops carefully and lovingly looking for the blind and deaf sinner, (as the woman did looking for the coin in the Gospels), how is one to imagine He would now forsake him when, as a lost sheep, he calls out for the Shepherd? Yet who will ever trust that God, Who, according to Revelation, always stands at the door of the heart of a man, and knocks, desiring to enter and dine with him ( Rev 3:20 ), and grant His gifts to him, would not trust that this very same God would continue to be deaf and decline to enter if a man opens the door of his heart and summons Him?
(4) The fourth means of keeping a lively faith in God and of obtaining His ready assistance is to go over in our mind all the times His divine aid quickly came in Holy Writ.
You will attain perfect trust in God,
These many examples demonstrate clearly to us that no one who trusts in God, is ever abandon. "Consider the ancient generations and see," says Sirach (Eccl.), the wise, "who ever trusted in the Lord and was put to shame?" (Sir 2:10 )
So, along with full renunciation of ourselves we should sow in our heart complete trust and confidence in God and full confidence in Him. Put another way, we should feel with all our heart that we can depend on no one but God, and that from Him alone, we can except all good things, all manner of assistance, and success.
Because we are nothing, we should accept nothing from ourselves, save falls and missteps, which make us give up all hope in ourselves. By contrast, we are sure always to be successful with God, if we equip our heart with a living trust in God and a steadfast certainty that we will obtain His aid. As it says in the psalm, 'In him my heart trusts and I am helped’ ( Ps. 28:7 ). These thoughts will aid you to have this hope and thus to receive help:
(1) Look for help from God, Who is all-powerful and can do whatever He wills, and so can also aid us.
(2) Look for help from God, Who is all-knowing and wise, knowing everything perfectly, and thus understanding exactly what is the best thing for the salvation of each person.
(3) Look for help from God, Whose goodness is infinite and Who draws near to us with indescribable love, being ever prepared each hour and moment to grant us the help we require for total success in the spiritual battle which happens within us, as soon as we flee with steadfast trust into the protection of His embrace. But how can it be that our good Shepherd, Who for three years sought the sheep which had wandered amiss, crying out so loudly that His throat was parched, and following roads so worn and full of thorns that He shed every drop of His blood and delivered His very life. How can it be, I say again, that now, if His sheep should follow after him, turning to Him with love and calling out to Him for help with hope, He would decline to cast His eyes on the sheep that had gone astray. How could He not take it into His divine embrace and, put it among the angels of heaven, and prepare a welcoming banquet for it? If our God never stops carefully and lovingly looking for the blind and deaf sinner, (as the woman did looking for the coin in the Gospels), how is one to imagine He would now forsake him when, as a lost sheep, he calls out for the Shepherd? Yet who will ever trust that God, Who, according to Revelation, always stands at the door of the heart of a man, and knocks, desiring to enter and dine with him ( Rev 3:20 ), and grant His gifts to him, would not trust that this very same God would continue to be deaf and decline to enter if a man opens the door of his heart and summons Him?
(4) The fourth means of keeping a lively faith in God and of obtaining His ready assistance is to go over in our mind all the times His divine aid quickly came in Holy Writ.
You will attain perfect trust in God,
These many examples demonstrate clearly to us that no one who trusts in God, is ever abandon. "Consider the ancient generations and see," says Sirach (Eccl.), the wise, "who ever trusted in the Lord and was put to shame?" (Sir 2:10 )
Equipped with these four weapons, go into war with courage, dear brother, and fight carefully with the complete confidence that success will be given to you.
Because with their assistance you will surely attain perfect trust in God, and that trust will never fail to draw God's assistance and grant you unbeatable power. In the end, these two will deeply root in you a complete distrust of yourself. I pass over no opportunity in this chapter to remind you to not trust yourself, because I do not know of anyone who does not need to be reminded of this. Self-regard is so rooted in us and so strongly established, causing us to suppose that we are a somebody, somebody not insignificant. It ever hides in our heart as an small and barely perceptible motion, even when we are quite confident that we do mistrust ourselves, and are, by contrast filled with an absolute faith in God alone. To keep from this self-conceited notion of the heart and to conduct ourselves without any independence, guided only by your faith in God, be careful to constantly keep a disposition in which your thoughts and feelings of inadequacy always come before you when you meditate on God's all powerful nature, and allow them to come before all your activities.
Because with their assistance you will surely attain perfect trust in God, and that trust will never fail to draw God's assistance and grant you unbeatable power. In the end, these two will deeply root in you a complete distrust of yourself. I pass over no opportunity in this chapter to remind you to not trust yourself, because I do not know of anyone who does not need to be reminded of this. Self-regard is so rooted in us and so strongly established, causing us to suppose that we are a somebody, somebody not insignificant. It ever hides in our heart as an small and barely perceptible motion, even when we are quite confident that we do mistrust ourselves, and are, by contrast filled with an absolute faith in God alone. To keep from this self-conceited notion of the heart and to conduct ourselves without any independence, guided only by your faith in God, be careful to constantly keep a disposition in which your thoughts and feelings of inadequacy always come before you when you meditate on God's all powerful nature, and allow them to come before all your activities.
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