“Suffering is God’s winnowing fork to remove sin from your life…”
There are a variety of ways to suffer, but the man who spoke these words did so while in immense pain. So much pain in fact, that his eyes were closed the entire time that he preached, while the occasional tear fell from his eye, and down his cheek.
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He told us before he started that, “The message he was about to preach wouldn’t preach well in church”, but that “we seminarians needed to know what God was going to do to prepare us for ministry.” Nothing was off limits to the depth that God would strike us down in order to make us ready for ministry. Not exactly a great marketing strategy, which this sermon was preached in chapel and not at the open house for prospective students.
Seminary was one of the most difficult experiences in my adult life. We moved 12 times in five years, dealt with shady landlords, struggled financially, discovered our duplex neighbor was trafficking drugs by way of a raid on his unit, totaled our car, and at one point found myself living in the basement of the seminary with a wife pregnant with twins and a 12 month old sleeping at the foot of our bed, looking up at the ceiling wondering “What is going on?”
“Do not say: ‘I am hidden from God; and on high who remembers me? Among so many people I am unknown; what am I in the world of spirits?… Such the thoughts of the senseless; only the foolish entertain them.
— Ben-Sira 16:17-18, 23
This passage is in the context of divine judgment. The author is saying you should not think that your sins go unnoticed by God simply because you believe you are small and insignificant compared to God. Similarly, when we go through difficult times we should not believe that because we are insignificant by comparison to God that he does not see us striving and seeking after Him. He sees us when we fall, and when we pick ourselves back up.
Suffering is God’s “winnowing fork”. With it he removes sin in our lives, but this description only captures part of the Christian life. What about the times, when suffering is permitted because God desires to wean us off off of spiritual milk and desires that instead of crawling, we need to walk with him? Those initial steps are uncertain and difficult. But we must keep the faith. Stand up, and reach for our Father’s hand. When he pulls it back, we must not pout for long, but trust that the he is trying to teach us something that will grow us into spiritual adults.
St. John of the Cross has helped me realize that God is near in these times of “aridity” and “insipidity”. God’s word, per Ben-Sira, reveals that it is foolish to believe that our actions go unnoticed by God. Christ re-affirms this in the Gospels as he reminds us that God has numbered the hairs on our head. Nothing we experience goes unnoticed by our heavenly Father. But in times when nothing seems to go right, everyone else is getting the promotions, and every plow you set your hand to either breaks or turns a crop of weeds, what are you going to believe? Do you throw in the towel? You must be careful in such challenges. The time you are in may be a time of winnowing, a time of purging what is keeping your soul from a deeper and more abiding relationship with God.
The Dark Night of the Soul is a book that tackles these spiritual mysteries and attempts to help Christians discern when their spiritual droughts are the result God drawing them close or their being far from him. Is it the result of some failure on their part, a lukewarm spirit, or is God actually meeting their desire for a pure heart by leading them through the desserts of their soul the same way he did with the Israelites in dessert?
What shall we eat? Should we go back to our old ways?
“…Together with with the aridity and emptiness…it gives the soul an inclination and desire to be alone and in quietness, without being able to think of any particular thing or having the desire to do so. If those souls to whom this comes to pass knew how to be quiet at this time, and troubled not about performing any kind of action, whether inward or outward, neither had any anxiety about doing anything, then they would delicately experience this inward refreshment in that ease and freedom from care.”
— St. John of the Cross
It was only in Adoration that I discovered what it means to “be quiet” in these difficulties, something with which an IT professional with ADD finds extremely challenging. This happened when I went to Adoration for the first time.
As I tried to meditate on Christ’s nature and acts in human history, I found myself getting distracted with issues in my life. Every time I would begin to reflect on his goodness, sacrifice, or beauty, I would immediately find myself petitioning him for some physical need or desire: better pay, a struggle in my life, desire for purpose, etc. After about 15 minutes of this, I heard what Christians describe as a “still small voice”, not audible, but very distinct: “How long have you believed that your relationship with God was all about you?”
It was a moment of spiritual aridity, a punch to the soul that leads the heart to say, “Who is this King of Glory?” I prayed a bit longer and then left the Adoration chapel and planned to go to confession. I had exchanged my love for God for love of self for a loooong time. It was a powerful moment. A moment that was preceded by spiritual drought, illuminated by the presence of the Lord, renewed by the forgiveness of sins, and nourished later by Christ’s desire to unite me to himself in the Eucharist.
Our spiritual droughts may be the result of sin in our lives, this is true. But as St. Paul says, the “spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Our desires are conflicted, both spiritually and physically, because we are ultimately divided between the lusts of the flesh and the desire for Heaven. But in these moments of difficulty, we must never believe that God does not see us, or is not using these challenges for our good. We Christians must remember, that no matter what degree of suffering we may endure in this life or the next, that it is ultimately God preparing us for his Kingdom where we will see him as he truly is, and he will see us as he made us to be.
Keep thinking…
— DR
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