Advice about Growth in Grace
ADVICE ABOUT GROWTH IN GRACE ~— 63
while we are in many outward troubles, just as the bottom of the sea is calm, while the surface is strongly agitated.
The best helps to growth in grace are the ill usage, the affronts, and the losses that befall us. We should receive them with all thankfulness, as preferable to all others, were it only on this account: that our will has no part therein.
The readiest way to escape from our sufferings is to be willing that they should endure as long as God pleases.
If we bear persecution and affliction in a right manner, we attain a larger measure of conformity to Christ, by a due improvement of one of these occasions, than we could have done merely by imitating his mercy, in abundance of good works.
One of the greatest evidences of God's love to those who love him is to send them afflictions, with grace to bear them.
Even in the greatest afflictions, we ought to testify to God that in receiving them from his hand we feel pleasure in the midst of the pain from being afflicted by him who loved us, and whom we love.
The readiest way God takes to draw people to himself is to afflict them in what they love most and with good reason, and to cause this affliction to arise from some good action done with a single eye.
Nothing can more clearly show them the emptiness of what is most lovely and desirable in the world.
(2) True resignation consists in a thorough conformity to the whole will of God, who wills and does
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all (excepting sin) that comes to pass in the world. In order to do this, we have only to embrace all events, good and bad, as God's will.
In the greatest afflictions that can befall the just, either from heaven or earth, they remain immovable in peace, and perfectly submissive to God by an inward, loving regard to him, uniting in one all the powers of their souls.
We ought quietly to accept whatever befalls us; to bear the defects of others and our own, to confess them to God in secret prayer, or with groans that cannot be uttered; but never to speak a sharp or peevish word, nor to murmur or repine; but thoroughly willing that God should treat you in the manner that pleases him. We are God's lambs and therefore ought to be ready to suffer, even to the death, without complaining.
We are to bear with those we cannot amend and to be content with offering them to God. This is true resignation. And since Christ has borne our infirmities, we may well bear those of each other for his sake.
To abandon all, to strip one's self of all in order to seek and to follow Jesus Christ naked to Bethlehem, where he was born; naked to the hall where he was scourged; and naked to Calvary, where he died on the cross, is so great a mercy that neither the thing nor the knowledge of it is given to any but through faith in the Son of God.
(3) There is no love of God without patience, and no patience without lowliness and sweetness of spirit.
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Humility and patience are the surest proof of the increase of love.
Humility alone unites patience with love; without which it is impossible to draw profit from suffering, or indeed, to avoid complaint, especially when we think we have no occasion for what people make us suffer.
True humility is a kind of self-annihilation, and this is the center of all virtues.
Souls returned to God ought to be attentive to everything that is said to them, on the head of salvation, with a desire to profit thereby.
Of the sins that God has pardoned, let nothing remain but a deeper humility in the heart, and a stricter regulation in our words, in our actions, and in our sufferings.
(4) Putting up with people and bearing evils in meekness and silence is the sum of a Christian life.
God is the first object of our love. Its next office is to bear the defects of others. And we should begin the practice of this amidst our own household.
We should chiefly exercise our love toward them who most shock either our way of thinking, or our temper, or our knowledge, or the desire we have that others should be as virtuous as we wish to be ourselves.
(5) God hardly gives the Spirit even to those he has established in grace if they do not pray for it on all occasions, not only once, but many times.
God does nothing but in answer to prayer.
Even those who have been converted to God without
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praying for it themselves (which is exceeding rare), were not without the prayers of others. Every new victory that a soul gains is the effect of a new prayer.
On every occasion of uneasiness we should retire to prayer, that we may give place to the grace and light of God, and then form our resolutions, without being in any pain about what success they may have.
In the greatest temptations, a single look to Christ and barely pronouncing his name suffices to overcome the wicked one, if it be done with confidence and calmness of spirit.
God's command to pray without ceasing is founded on the necessity we have of God's grace to preserve the life of God in the soul, which can no more subsist one moment without it than the body can without air.
Whether we think of or speak to God, whether we act or suffer for him, all is prayer when we have no other object than his love and the desire of pleasing him.
All that Christians do, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer when done in simplicity, according to the order of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by their own choice.
Prayer continues in the desire of the heart, though the understanding be employed on outward things.
In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is a continual prayer.
As the furious hate the devil bears toward us is termed the roaring of a lion, so our vehement love may be termed crying after God.
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God only requires of his adult children that their hearts be truly purified and that they offer him continually the wishes and vows that naturally spring from perfect love. For these desires, being the genuine fruits of love, are the most perfect prayers that can spring from it.
AOVICE ABOUT
VIGILANCE
From A Plain Account of Christian Perfection The conclusion of Wesleys reflections on holy living.
(6) It is scarcely conceivable how narrow the way is wherein God leads those who follow him and how dependent on him we must be unless we are wanting in our faithfulness to him.
It is hardly believable of what great consequence before God the smallest things are, and what great inconveniences sometimes follow those that appear to be light faults.
As a very little dust will disorder a clock and the least sand will obscure our sight, so the least grain of sin that is upon the heart will hinder its right motion toward God.
We ought to be in the church as the saints are in heaven, and in the house as the holiest people are in the church: doing our work in the house as we pray in the church, worshiping God from the ground of the heart.
We should be continually laboring to cut off all the useless things that surround us. God usually removes the excesses of our souls in the same proportion as we do those of our bodies.
The best means of resisting the devil is to destroy whatever of the world remains in us in order to raise for God, upon its ruins, a building all of love.
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Then shall we begin, in this fleeting life, to love God as we shall love him in eternity.
We scarcely conceive how easy it is to rob God of his due in our friendship with the most virtuous persons until they are torn from us by death. But if this loss produce lasting sorrow, that is a clear proof that we had before two treasures, between which we divided our heart.
(7) If, after having renounced all, we do not watch incessantly and beseech God to accompany our vigilance with his, we shall be again entangled and overcome.
As the most dangerous winds may enter at little openings, so the devil never enters more dangerously than by little unobserved incidents, which seem to be nothing, yet insensibly open the heart to great temptations.
It is good to renew ourselves from time to time by closely examining the state of our souls, as if we had never done it before. For nothing tends more to the full assurance of faith than to keep ourselves by this means in humility and the exercise of all good works.
To continual watchfulness and prayer ought to be added continual employment. For grace flies a vacuum as well as nature, and the devil fills whatever
God does not fill.
There is no faithfulness like that which ought to be between a guide of souls and the person directed by that one. They ought continually to regard each other in God and closely to examine themselves, whether all their thoughts are pure and all their
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words directed with Christian discretion. Other affairs are only the things of people. But these are peculiarly the things of God.
(8) The words of Saint Paul, no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit, show us the necessity of eyeing God in our good works and even in our minutest thoughts. We know that none are pleasing to God but those that he forms in us and with us.
From hence we learn that we cannot serve God unless God use our tongue, hands, and heart to do by himself and his Spirit whatever he would have us to do.
If we were not utterly impotent, our good works would be our own property; whereas now they belong wholly to God, because they proceed from God and God's grace. While raising our works, and making them all divine, God honors himself in us through them.
One of the principal rules of religion is to lose no occasion for serving God. And since God is invisible to our eyes, we are to serve God in our neighbor, which God receives as if done to himself in person, standing visibly before us.
God does not love people who are inconstant nor good works that are intermittent. Nothing is pleasing to God but what has a resemblance of God's own immutability.
A constant attention to the work God entrusts us with is a mark of solid piety.
Love fasts when it can, and as much as it can. It leads to all the ordinances of God and employs itself
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in all the outward works whereof it is capable. It flies, as it were, like Elijah over the plain, to find God upon the holy mountain.
God is so great that he communicates greatness to the least thing that is done for his service.
Happy are they who are sick, or even lose their life for having done a good work.
God frequently conceals the part his children have in the conversion of other souls. Yet one may boldly say that the person who long groans before God for the conversion of another, whenever that soul is converted to God, is one of the chief causes of it.
Charity cannot be practiced right, unless, first, we exercise it the moment God gives the occasion; and, second, retire the instant after to offer it to God by humble thanksgiving. And this for three reasons — first, to render God what we have received from him. Second, to avoid the dangerous temptation that springs from the very goodness of these works.
And third, to unite ourselves to God, in whom the soul expands itself in prayer with all the graces we have received and the good works we have done. So we draw from God new strength against the bad effects that these very works may produce in us, if we do not make use of the antidotes that God has ordained against these poisons. The true means to be filled anew with the riches of grace is thus to strip ourselves of it. Without this it is extremely difficult not to grow faint in the practice of good works.
Good works do not receive their last perfection till they, as it were, lose themselves in God. This is a
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y kind of death to them, resembling that of our bodies, which will not attain their highest life, their immortality, till they lose themselves in the glory of our souls, or rather of God, wherewith they shall be filled. And it is only what they had of the earthly and mortal that good works lose by this spiritual death.
Fire is the symbol of love. And the love of God is the principle and the end of all our good works.
But the truth surpasses the symbol, and the fire of divine love has this advantage over material fire, that it can reascend to its source, and raise to these with it all the good works that. it produces. And by this means it prevents their being corrupted by pride, vanity, or any evil mixture. But this cannot be done otherwise than by making these good works in a spiritual manner die in God, by a deep gratitude, which plunges the soul in God as in an abyss, with all that it is, and all the grace and works for which it is indebted to him. By this gratitude the soul seems to empty itself of them, that they may return to their source, as rivers seem willing to empty themselves when they pour themselves with all their waters into the sea.
When we have received any favor from God, we ought to retire, if not into our closets, into our hearts, and say, "I come, Lord, to restore to you what you have given. I freely relinquish it, to enter again into my own nothingness. For what is the most perfect creature in heaven or earth in your presence, but a void capable of being filled with you and by you as the air that is void and dark is capable of
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being filled with the light of the sun, who withdraws it every day to restore it the next, there being nothing in the air that either appropriates this light or resists it? Oh, give me the same facility of receiving and restoring your grace and good works! I say 'your,' for I acknowledge the root from which they spring is in you, and not in me."
APPENOLX Reading Spiritual Classics for Personal and Group Formation Many Christians today are searching for more spiritual depth, for something more than simply being good church members. That quest may send them to the spiritual practices of New Age movements or of Eastern religions such as Zen Buddhism. Christians, though, have their own long spiritual tradition, a tradition rich with wisdom, variety, and depth.
The great spiritual classics testify to that depth.
They do not concern themselves with mystical flights for a spiritual elite. Rather, they contain very practical advice and insights that can support and shape the spiritual growth of any Christian. We can all benefit by sitting at the feet of the masters (both male and female) of Christian spirituality.
Reading spiritual classics is different from most of the reading we do. We have learned to read to master a text and extract information from it. We tend to read quickly, to get through a text. And we summarize as we read, seeking the main point. In reading spiritual classics, though, we allow the text to master and form us. Such formative reading goes more slowly, more reflectively, allowing time for God to speak to us through the text. God's word for us may come as easily from a minor point or even an aside as from the major point.
Formative reading requires that you approach
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the text in humility. Read as a seeker, not as an expert. Don't demand that the text meet your expectations for what an "enlightened" author should write.
Humility means accepting the author as another imperfect human, a product of his or her own time and situation. Learn to celebrate what is foundational in an author's writing without being overly disturbed by what is peculiar to the author's life and times.
Trust the text as a gift from both God and the author, offered to you for your benefit —to help you grow in Christ.
To read formatively; you must also slow down.
Feel free to reread a passage that seems to speak specially to you. Stop from time to time to reflect on what you have been reading. Keep a journal for these reflections. Often the act of writing can itself prompt further, deeper reflection. Keep your notebook open and your pencil in hand as you read. You might not get back to that wonderful insight later. Don't worry that you are not getting through an entire passage — or even the first paragraph! Formative reading is about depth rather than breadth, quality rather than quantity. As you read, seek God's direction for your own life. Timeless truths have their place but may not be what is most important for your own formation here and now.
As you read the passage, you might keep some of these questions running through your mind:
¢ How is what I'm reading true of my own life?
Where does it reflect my own experience?
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How does this text challenge me? What new direction does it offer me? e What must I change to put what I am reading into practice? How can I incarnate it, let this word become flesh in my life?
You might also devote special attention to sections that upset you. What is the source of the disturbance? Do you want to argue theology? Are you turned off by cultural differences? Or have you been skewered by an insight that would turn your life upside down if you took it seriously? Let your journal be a dialogue with the text.
If you find yourself moving from reading the text to chewing over its implications to praying, that's great! Spiritual reading is really the first step in an ancient way of prayer called J/ectio divina or "divine reading." Reading leads naturally into reflection on what you have read (meditation). As you reflect on what the text might mean for your life, you may well want to ask for God's help in living out any new insights or direction you have perceived (prayer).
Sometimes such prayer may lead you further into silently abiding in God's presence (contemplation).
And, of course, the process is only really completed when it begins to make a difference in the way we live (incarnation).
As good as it is to read spiritual classics in solitude, it is even better to join with others in a small group for mutual formation or "spiritual direction in common." This is vot the same as a study group that
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talks about spiritual classics. A group for mutual formation would have similar goals as for an individual's reading: to allow the text to shine its light on the experiences of the group members, to suggest new directions for their lives and practical ways of incarnating these directions. Such a group might agree to focus on one short passage from a classic at each meeting (even if members have read more).
Discussion usually goes much deeper if all the members have already read and reflected on the passage before the meeting and bring their journals.
Such groups need to watch for several potential problems. It is easy to go off on a tangent (especially if it takes the focus off the members' own experience and onto generalities). At such times a group leader might bring the group's attention back to the text:
"What does our author say about that?" Or, "How do we experience that in our own lives?" When a group member shares a problem, others may be tempted to try to "fix" it. This is much less helpful than sharing similar experiences and how they were handled (for good or ill). "Sharing" someone else's problems (whether that person is in or out of the group) should be strongly discouraged.
One person could be designated as leader, to be responsible for opening and closing prayers; to be the first to share or respond to the text; and to keep notes during the discussion to highlight recurring themes, challenges, directives, or practical steps.
These responsibilities could also be shared among several members of the group or rotated.
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For further information about formative reading of spiritual classics, try A Practical Guide to Spiritual Reading by Susan Annette Muto. Shaped by the Word by Robert Mulholland (Upper Room Books) covers formative reading of the Bible. Good Things
Happen: Experiencing Community in Small Groups by Dick Westley is an excellent resource on forming small groups of all kinds.
More than ever, people want to grow spiritually.
They want to explore the Christian church's rich spiritual traditions. But navigating the great classics of devotion is not always a simple matter. The Upper Room Spiritual Classics are designed to help. They offer readable translations arranged in an accessible format.
Each volume provides at least fourteen excerpts that cover the range of the writer's spiritual concerns. An ie ees aes ham eu lage introduction helps make sense of the writer and his or her world. And an appendix on reading the classics as an individual and in groups will make the insights available to everyone.
A Longing for Holiness: Selected Writings of John Wesley NNO Ong eeen mbm slecro hme occa century preacher, writer, and founder of Methodism.
This volume includes selections from Wesley's journals, sermons, and books, giving a clear picture not only of Wesley but of the spiritual vitality that ignited a movement and continues to transform lives today.
ARRANGED, EDITED, AND iNTRODUCED
BY KEITH BEASLEY-ITOPLiFFE
ISBN 0-8358-0827 U
Tee UMN les o7 preay BOOKS