“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantine and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”― Sylvia Plath

Last September I had a pretty big decision to make about where I was going to accept a job. I called up the people who knew me best to get their insight, asked my father of confession for his wisdom and spoke to people working in the same field for their perspective.

Whether it’s deciding over relationships, colleges, schools or jobs, sometimes we might find ourselves with two seemingly great choices, and so we find ourselves in a dilemma. Each choice will come at a cost; each choice will have positives and negatives, and ultimately no choice will be perfect.

I’ve never been a fan of pros and cons lists – I find that life can’t be categorised that easily. However, a friend gave me advice that helped. I was told to assign a value to each point under my two options. When I started writing the values I held, I started to see that while both choices were in line with the vision I had for my life, there were some values that were more significant than others. And while one option had way more values than the other, the other which only had a couple were much more fundamental to me.

A few of the things I’ve learned this season…

“We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). In the midst of his crisis, King Jehoshaphat acted by praising God. We also in the midst of our confusion and turmoil over decisions, need to learn the art laying our anxieties and restless thoughts down, being still and opening our heart in worship. The voice of the Holy Spirit can be so gentle that it’s only when we spend time in his presence that we can discern His Voice from all the noise.

Pray and learn from whatever happens on the other side. No matter what you choose, there will be struggle, and there will be trials for we know “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Sometimes those are a result of our choices, but in the end, they will be used by God to sanctify us and purify us. Living with our eyes on eternity is important in those seasons to understand that nothing is outside of His never-ending and unfailing love and mercy. There is no such thing as Plan B or Z with Christ. He will use all for our deification; it might take us longer on certain paths but even then, all we need to do is repent, and we are restored.

There’s a principle in radiology that says even if you find the fracture on an x-ray you should keep looking for other signs because you don’t want to be blindsided. Bring your decision before the Lord in prayer and meditation but challenge yourself to be curious and look deeper into your intentions, motivations and reasons for each choice. Give yourself time, patience and space and trust that the Holy Spirit will examine you, try you and reveal what is in depths of your heart.

Sometimes God’s will is clear and other times, most times, God allows us the freedom to choose and become whoever we want, though He may certainly have a direction for you. Submission is hard as we deny our self that we may be dedicated to Another. The hardest part in all of this is asking God “Who do you want me to be?” I think of Mary, called to be Mother of God; Abraham called to be Father of Nations and the disciples called to be Fishers of Men. God revealed to them who they were in His eyes and with that promise He gave them the strength and grace to become. Sometimes we don’t know how to choose because we don’t know who God is asking us to be. That may not be a question that gets answered overnight, it needs silence and self-awareness and time alone with Him. Sometimes it’s a process – it takes making one choice faithfully, and waiting faithfully and then making another and waiting to see what is revealed. But it’s a question we all desperately need the answer to – more than what we do God wants us to know who we are. It is only in knowing that, can we then make the decisions about what we do, how we spend our time, money and emotions. Because where we invest our heart, there we invest our life.

What if there is no such thing as the perfect choice? Because choosing means we can’t have everything. Because we don’t know how things will change and how those things that change will change us. Because we don’t know who we will be or what we will need in the future? Because we can sit here and play “what if the the grass is greener over there?” all day and it won’t bring us any closer to an answer – only further from being satisfied. And what if none of that matters because the point is to grow and seek His kingdom regardless of our choices?

So trust yourself. Most of our choices are not made in isolation. Where we are now and the choices we are making today is a culmination of all the choices and experiences in the past that have led up to this point. Trust that the God who has knit you from birth, has been guiding you and shaping you like clay can lead you today in this choice. Sometimes it’s fear of not having the perfect picture of our future figured out that holds us back.

A year later I’m fighting to find peace in the unknown road I’m on, but I want to continue to fight and continue to hope in Him because when I put the pieces in front of me, they don’t fit. Before me lays the back of a colourful tapestry and I have little idea what the canvas is going to look like. There are some dark threads from the past and some strange shapes from the present. But if I let Him just take all the colours, threads and pieces, I don’t have to sit and stare at them. The root of every untrusting feeling is the fear that He is not in fact good and that His love will end, especially when I feel I have no clue or answers about what to do. But if I forfeit my desire to know every outcome, if I forfeit the need to have physical evidence or feeling as evidence, then I will trust in His Word that He is with me, and that He is weaving stars and gold from what looks like odd patterns to me. And doesn’t that make all the difference?

C.S. Lewis — ‘I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?’

One choice we can always make, even in the midst of painful uncertainty, the simplest place to start is with this: “Love the Lord your God … and love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater…”  You will always be where you need to be as long as Love is your aim.

Exodus 16:3

The Greek word ‘peirasmos’ means both a trial and a tempation. The fathers of the church used them interchangeably and I am beginning to understand why.

When everything turns out to be nothing like you expected, its is much easier to despair, to fall into self pity, and to ignore God, in favour of getting lost in a never ending introspection.

When it feels like I’m stumbling around in the dark wilderness and the thistles are scratching at my feet, when even walking becomes difficult and the narrow road just seems too hard. Like Gomer, who cried out for the old oil and drink she once had, and the Israelites who cried out for the meat of Egypt.

I was tempted to take a sip of the soothing ointment of the world, that I know to be poison.

‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’

Hosea 2:5

Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Exodus 14:12

For the first time, I am realising why in the midst of Job and his friends talking about suffering and God Job stands and promises to make a covenant with his eyes not to look upon a woman. For as many times I had read Job, I had never noticed how misplaced that seemed… until it was too familiar to ignore.

Maybe I was never listening when they said in times of tribulation, you must be even more vigilant for temptation.

Distracted by the walls of my city crumbling, my own house has been left unguarded.

‘Your own vineyard you have not kept’.

Songs of Solomon 1:6

Oh heart you have forgotten that the only real danger in this world is sin.

“For I have not stopped saying and I will not stop saying that there is only one thing truly distressing, and that is sin. Everything else is dust and smoke.”

St John Chrysostom

Maybe it’s one of the devils favourite games to keep us wrapped up in our own problems that we forget to ask… When I am squeezed, what is coming out? When I am squeezed… I am no longer deceived. Sweet lemonade or bitter lemon?

I am realising that for years I was saying words, words that were so easy to say. But now I am being called to live. To put into practice the endless preaching. In time, perhaps I will learn to say with Moses that these words are ‘not just idle for you, they are life’ (Deuteronomy 32:47) and by them I will cross over into the Jordan. I will cross over to new heights I know He wants to take me.

In the mean time, I am struggling through the labour pains, I am so anxious to give birth to something beautiful, but I must learn to wait patiently and know that in an INSTANT, God is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than I could pray and ask for.

“stop beseeching this or that person for help, and running after shadows – for this is what human assistance amounts to – instead ceaselessly beseech God whom you serve simply to give a nod and in a moment of time everything is brought into proper order” St John Chrysostom

Now if, while a man is walking in the path of righteousness, and is making his way toward God… he encounters in this path some afflictions of this sort, he must not turn aside from his way. Rather, he should accept whatever it is joyously, without scrutiny, and give thanks to God, because God has sent him this gift. That is to say, because he has been deemed worthy to fall into temptation for His sake, and to become a partaker of the sufferings of the prophets and the apostles, and of the rest of the saints who endured tribulations for the sake of God’s path, whether from men, from demons, or from the body. For without the bidding of God it is impossible that tribulations should be permitted to arise; but they occur so as to be for a man the cause of righteousness -St Isaac the Syrian

for it is not God’s good pleasures that those whom He loves should live in ease while they are in the flesh -St Isaac the Syrian

Let me tell you a simple tale of a man who endured unparalleled pain, and prevailed. Listen, as I share with you the story of he who lost it all, to gain everything.

I recently met up with an old friend and we reminisced over painful events in the past, sharing the ways in which God had helped us to cope with them. As he vulnerably opened up to me, I couldn’t help but notice the intricate works of the Lord throughout his life that had led him to the solid ground he stood on today.

This friend of mine had lost his mother at a very young age and was brought up in a broken home; with very dysfunctional relationships with his siblings. As he shared with me his hopes and dreams as a child, I could see the pain those memories held in his eyes. I sat in the corner of Starbucks repeatedly listening to stories of parental favouritism, negligence from his siblings and emotional abuse, and though my heart ached, I ate up every word he said, eagerly awaiting the revelation of a key to life that I was certain he must have discovered to have become the mighty man he is today.
As he reached the climax of every story he shared with me, a smirk would appear on his face, and after five or six times, I knew exactly what that smirk meant. A big plot twist would ravage the story, and the season of joy or success he would be experiencing, somehow – almost frustratingly – would spiral downwards in an uncontrollably fast way. I’m not going to lie, being the impulsive person I am, his calm demeanor as he spoke began to stress me out, even though none of his past struggles had anything to do with me! I guess I wanted to see the anger and bitterness that had been brewing within him, but to my utter surprise none of that was to be revealed – not because of any wall he may have been putting up, but because there was none.

Friends, believe me when I tell you that evening I heard stories of child abuse, wrongful accusations and consequently wrongful punishments. Stories of deception that would send chills down the coldest spines. Yet this man, with the darkest past, exuded nothing but peace. With the warmest smile, he looked at me in the eyes and said “whatever bad things have happened to me in the past, God has used for good in my life today¹”. Just like that. No complaining, no anger, no self-pity… just the deep revelation that God had used his past seasons of pain for his present joy.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Isaiah 43:18-19

As he spoke these simple of words of truth, He who dwells within me began to whisper the words He had inspired St. Paul to write to the Philippians; “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:12-13. My friend had truly known what it meant to be in need – in need of money, respect, justice, and love, and he breathed this revelation; that true contentment in every situation can only be achieved through Him who gives you strength. Strength to endure the unendurable. He recognised that apart from His Saviour he could accomplish nothing², “and that, Michael, is why I feel free” he told me simply, with a joyful smile, as if the Holy Spirit had bathed him in peace and liberty.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5

This wise man that sat before me at our small two-seater table in Starbucks in Westfield Shopping Centre had figured it out. He’d given me the key to life that I desperately wanted to learn from him. He had come to the revelation that seasons change but the Lord God Almighty forever remains the same³. A revelation that gifted him with tremendous confidence in His Maker, confidence during painful seasons that though he stood helpless before great mountains, His Saviour is and will forever be able to turn them into level ground⁴ for him to walk through to greener pastures.
As our conversation came to an end, my friend looked at me one more time, and humbly said “…and you know the best part about all this? It’s blessed my present and made me forget all about my past.^5″.

Those were the simple words spoken by a simple man who lived a great life, and his words rung ever so loudly in my ears. A man who had tasted what it meant to be in need and to have plenty. A man who recognised that apart from His Creator he could do nothing, but through Him could do all things. A man who, with ease, embraced seasons past, recognising that they led him to where he stood today.

If you want to meet my friend, find him in Genesis 37-50.
His name, is Joseph.

And the cutting winds that blew violently, hushed. The roaring waves that crashed ferociously, silenced. The devastated earth that was shaken, became still. A New Season had begun…

[1] Genesis 50:20
[2] Genesis 41:16
[3] Malachi 3:6
[4] Zechariah 4:6-7
[5] Genesis 41:51-52

Identity |ʌɪˈdɛntɪti|

noun (pl. identities)

the fact of being who or what a person or thing is, the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is

“We contain multitudes,” wrote Walt Whitman. Identity is the ground in which our roots find a home. Drifting and unearthed roots will wander aimless and lost in a dream world of pseudo-freedom. And roots on thorny or rocky ground grow weak and vulnerable trees.

What is our identity? What is our frame of reference for the Truth, the paradigms that form the lens for our perception of Truth, the maps we use to find our way to Truth? Is it the shakeable ground of seeing the world as we are? Or is it the solid and firm ground of seeing through God’s living Word, by which He spoke things into being?

Our struggle with the question “Who am I?” is one we can not answer without knowing where we have come from and where our roots lie. So to ask “Who am I?” is to ask “Who is my Mother, “the pillar and the ground of truth” (1 Tim. 3:15)?”

“A man cannot have God as his Father if he does not have the Church as his Mother.”

Saint Cypria

The Church; my Mother, His bride. Late have I loved her as I ought, because late have I truly seen her and known her as “the Church without beginning, without end and eternal, just as the Triune God, her founder, is without beginning, without end and eternal” (St Porphyrios). Perhaps, humanity bends towards seeing things as they appear to be and not as they were created to be.

“She is a divine institution and in her dwells the whole fullness of divinity. She is an expression of the richly varied wisdom of God. She is the mystery of mysteries. She was concealed and was revealed in the last of times. The Church remains unshaken because she is rooted in the love and wise providence of God.”

St Porphyrios

Beyond a building, the Church is a deep mystery of Christ with us, an extension of the Incarnation. As Father Alexander Schmemman wrote, the church is “not an ‘essence’ or ‘being’ distinct, as such, from God, man, and the world, but is the very reality of Christ in us and us in Christ, a new mode of God’s presence and action in His creation, of creation’s life in God…She is union and unity, knowledge, communion and transfiguration.” God’s gift of this mystery to man is what endows the four walls of the church with all meaning and life as the manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

“Where the Church is, there is the Spirit, and where the Spirit is, there is the Church,” states St. Iranaeus. The Church is the Kingdom of life eternal where the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life, renewed creation through restoration in Christ, in His incarnation, death, resurrection and glorification.

The “organ of Christ’s redeeming work” (Chrestos Androutsos) where the continuing presence of Pentecost exists, where creation is transfigured by Christ, sanctified by the Holy Spirit and finds not only communion and reconciliation but fulfillment in the revelation of the kingdom which is “joy and peace in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:7). The beauty of Pentecost is found in “diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:4). This is the same Spirit of freedom that unites us in our diversity in so that our life in the Church is vivid with distinct personalities rather than dull, rigid and uniform.

In the intersection between the visible and invisible, worshipping congregations and heavenly hosts of angels, divine and human, nature and grace, material and the spiritual, present age and the life to come; the Church is found and is our preparation “for a better country-a heavenly one.” (Heb 11:1). She is a triumphant passage from old into the new, from the kingdom of nature into the Kingdom of Grace. The paradox remains, though she abides in the world she is otherworldly; just as we “are dead and [our] life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3); she is in pilgrimage and anticipation, in repentance and struggle. She is mission and vision of the salvation of all creation so that she may announce and witness to Christ, encompassing the totality of human history to offer, in Christ, the whole creation to God.

At the beating, pulsing heart of the sacramental Church is the Eucharist, our passover from this world into the Kingdom and partaking of His divine nature and immortal life.  “We, who are many, are one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Cor 10:17)

“The Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, and she must constantly fulfill herself as oneness, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. Her visible oneness is to be realized as the very content of the new life (“that they may be one as we are one”) and as the unity of all in God and with God. The objective holiness of her life (the gifts of grace and sanctification which pour from all her acts) is to be fulfilled and realized in the personal holiness of her members. The catholicity (the absolute fullness of the gospel she announces and the life she communicates) is to grow into the “wholeness” of the faith and life of each community, of each Christian, and of the whole Church. Her apostolicity (her identity in time and space with the pleroma of the Church manifested at Pentecost) is to be preserved whole and undistorted by every generation, always and everywhere.”

Father Alexander Schmemmen

In the dichotomy of imperfect humanity and the sinless saints in heaven, the Church exists in a tension. We may be no strangers to the ‘Church of the penitents, the Church of those who perish’ (St Ephraim the Syrian). Wounds from our mother can taint and fracture trust, but sin of man can never affect the nature of the Church which is intrinsically linked to God. The Church is inherently heavenly and taught by the Spirit and so can not sin, fail, be deceived or choose falsehood over truth. We must fight to hold fast to Truth: “Orthodoxy does not believe merely in an ideal Church, invisible and heavenly. This ‘ideal Church’ exists visibly on earth as a concrete reality.” (Bishop K. Ware)

“The mystery of the Church consists in the very fact that together sinners become something different from what they are as individuals; this “something different” is the Body of Christ.” 

John Meyendorff

To be rooted in Christ is to be rooted in His body and the dwelling place of the Spirit, the Church and the sacraments, “strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness” (Col 2:7).

Let your roots grow deep and wide “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph 2:20).

Sow those roots securely in Christ Who can not be torn separate from the Church since She is ‘the living image of eternity within time’ (Vladimir Lossky)

“The love of God created us in His image and likeness. He embraced us within the Church in spite of the fact that He knew of our apostasy. He gave us everything to make us gods too through the free gift of grace. For all that, we made poor use of our freedom and lost our original beauty, our original righteousness and cut ourselves off from the Church. Outside the Church, far from the Holy Trinity, we lost Paradise, everything. But outside the Church there is no salvation, there is no life. And so the compassionate heart of God the Father did not leave us exiled from His love. He opened again for us the gates of Paradise in the last times and appeared in flesh…God in His infinite love united us again with His Church in the person of Christ. On entering into the uncreated Church, we come to Christ, we enter into the realm of the uncreated. We the faithful are called to become uncreated grace, to be come participants in the divine energies of God, to enter into the mystery of divinity, to surpass our worldly frame of mind, to die to the ‘old man’ and to become immersed in God. When we live in the Church we live in Christ. This is a very fine-drawn matter, we cannot understand it. Only the Holy Spirit can teach us it.”

St Porphyrios

Check out Part V

Trust is a fragile thing. It is easily trampled under foot, until the microscopic shards leave you ripped and bleeding.

Trust is placed in many places and many faces. It may be placed in godly leaders in our lives. We trust their words and leadership. When we trust we often look to them as if that they are the Church, and when trust is broken, all their words come into question. But reality tells us that men are all fallible and the Church is more than its leadership, it is Christ’s flesh and bones, it is the teaching once delivered to the saints. Trust cannot alone be put in godly men and women around us. Trust must be primarily in God, who is infallible, who is our Truth.

But what is our Truth?

Where are we and what do we believe?

In what teaching do we trust, to what Truth do we hold on to?

Our allegiance is not to men and women who teach, but it is to the Word, the only Word that is Truth.

It is not uncommon to bite the hand that feeds us. Truth may feed us for some time, while later, in our pride, we may become our own truth. I recently discovered that I was master of my own ship; was once taught how to sail, then later made up my own way to tread through many waters.

I have seen war, and I have heard rumors of war between leaders amongst the churches. I don’t know politics, but Church is the politics I have been forced to learn. Church is the place I have hurt from, and I have hated, countless times to remember. It is in this place I have witnessed unforgiveness, injustice and anything but grace.

Yet the Church is home to the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth. The Truth that outshines any darkness. And in that Truth I realize, it is man whom I have hurt from, I have hated, and I have witnessed unforgettable sights. All the while the Church stood firm, rooted in the teachings it has held for centuries. But often, as a response to my own hurt and frustration, I not only reject the perpetrators, but I reject too the teachings the Church is founded on, as if this will be the soothing ointment to my wounds. Bitterness has never healed a wounded heart, and rejection of Truth only leads us further from the Truth. Out of hurt, it is easy to run, like the unfaithful lover who cannot choose to stay, who cannot choose submission, who cannot choose to fight for Truth. When I reject the Church, I choose a war of emotion and grief instead of love and peace; I run to my own beliefs, separating myself from the community of the church, choosing to look upon the bride of Christ with judgement and condemnation.

“A sect is separation, solitariness, the denial of communality. The sectarian spirit is the direct opposite of the Church spirit.”
-Fr Georges Florovsky

May we cling to the Church, that the Spirit of God who is in her may rid our hearts of a sectarian spirit. For, Truth is not a fragile thing.

Truth is absolute.

So I choose to stop rejecting her. I choose to stop being my own God and making up my own truth. I choose radical obedience to the Truth. I choose to stop running.

This is the Church.

Here there is hurt. Here there is healing.

We need to love her ripped and bleeding.

You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is.
Galatians 5:7-10

To the hurt, 

Please know that healing is not a momentary, glorious event. It is hard, it is long, and it is a process. While these words are truths I believe in, there are days that it still hurts so much and I lose hope, thinking I am right back where I started. Healing is a journey, may we walk this long road together.

Check out Part II

How does this have to do with you and me, you ask?

Well Satan hates God and everything that has to do with Him, including us. Because we were made in the image of God, Satan loathes us and will do anything and everything in his power to destroy us with himself by keeping us disconnected from the Bridegroom of our soul.

This would be a cause for great fear if it were not for Him who is for us, who holds the world in His loving hands.

Satan may roar like a lion but he is nothing compared to the Lion of Judah. He may be the prince of this world, but he has to ask permission from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords before doing anything. Satan may even be able to transform himself into an angel of light to confuse some, but our God is the Unapproachable Light who enlightens those who seek after Him.

Satan is an expert at waging war against mankind and his tactics are ruthless. He has had many thousands of years of experience and the war against him should not be taken lightly. However, God has not left us alone and has even allowed this warfare for our salvation. What follows are four tactics essential in fighting the enemy:

1. Never Rely on Yourself

“Not to rely on oneself is so necessary in our struggle, my beloved, that without this, be assured, not only will you fail to gain the desired victory, but you will be unable to resist the smallest attack of the enemy. Engrave this deeply in your mind and heart”

The first step is to realize that your enemy is just too strong for you. Never ever think you are safe but always expect temptation until your last breath. One of the crafty wiles of the devil is to withdraw for a time giving you the false sense that you have overcome some sin after much struggle. Then, when you have let down your guard he attacks with such fierceness that your fall is so great you cannot fathom how it happened.

It is important to remember the words spoken to St. Anthony when he asked who could overcome the snares and traps laid by the enemy. “The humble” came the gentle reply. Pride is detestable to God so He will withdraw His grace if He sees our hearts lifted up in pride when we think it is we who have overcome in our own strength. We need accountability and vulnerability with those we are fighting alongside and those who are leading us if we are to advance on the battlefield.

2. Have a Perfect Trust in God

“Together with complete renunciation of ourselves, we should plant in our heart a perfect trust in God and a complete confidence in Him”

In addition to understanding we can do nothing of ourselves we have to remember the power, wisdom, and love of God. If we hold fast to the following three truths we can establish an unwavering trust in Him:

God is Omnipotent, or all-powerful, and can do all that He chooses. Therefore He has all the power to help us in absolutely anything.

God is Omniscient, or all-wise, and knows all in the most perfect manner. He knows fully what is best for the salvation of each of us.

God is infinitely Good and comes to us with ineffable love. He, as a Good Shepherd and True Father, is always ready to help us as soon as we run to Him with firm trust in the protection of His arms. Because He loves us with an incomprehensible love, we have to know and trust that He will lead us in all things for our good and for His glory.

3. Strive without ceasing

“War should be waged ceaselessly and courageously”

There is no rest on this side of eternity. To ‘take a break from God’ is to surrender to the enemy.

“So this spiritual warfare of ours must be constant and never ceasing, and should be conducted with alertness and courage in the soul”

Never stop crying out to God saying:

“rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me.” (Psalm 142:6)

Continue using weapons proven to work:

“Flog the foes with the name of Jesus for there is no stronger weapon in heaven or on earth”

Get up every time you fall with hatred for those things which ensnare you and for the love of sin which lingers in your heart. Never give up. Never surrender. Your General, your King, your Father looks with joy at your efforts. Your struggle for His Name brings sweet pleasure to His heart, and that’s worth fighting for.

4. Remain constantly in prayer

Prayer doesn’t come in one shape or size.

There was actually a heresy in the 4th century that was condemned because it taught, among other things, that the only way to salvation was solely by praying.

Prayer’s ultimate goal is union with God and there is no formula for that. There is only relationship. Here are a couple of points to drive the point home:

St. Peter of Damascus says:

The Apostle says, “Pray without ceasing.” That is, he teaches men to have the remembrance of God in all times and places and circumstances. If you are making something, you must call to mind the Creator of all things; if you see the light, remember the Giver of it… If you put on your clothes, recall Whose gift they are and thank Him Who provides for your life. In short, let every action be a cause of your remembering and praising God, and lo! you will be praying without ceasing and therein your soul will always rejoice.

We can indeed pray unceasingly if, in addition to saying prayers we become prayer. Paul Evdokimov writes, It is not enough to say prayers; one must become, be prayer, prayer incarnate. It is not enough to have moments of praise. All of life, each act, every gesture, even the smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should offer not what one has, but what one is.

You can practice the presence of God, sing and make melody with your heart to the Lord, serve the poor and sick for the sake of Christ, stand or even sit in silent awe at the excellence of His beauty, meditate on how great are all things that His hands have made, write or type out prayers, and talk with family and friends about His goodness.

These are all forms of prayer.

Do all things with the intention to please and love Him more, and not to please yourself. Do not approach Him out of a feeling of guilt as if you must talk to Him in order to relieve yourself of some burden. Let your heart yearn for Him! Be consistent and faithful in coming to Him because you want to.. because you get to.. not because you have to.

Let us ask Him to give us this beautiful and blessed desire to love Him and yearn for Him all the days of our lives.

So to review, the four things we can do the wage war against and overcome the enemy are:

1.) Never rely on yourself

2.) Have a perfect trust in God

3.) Strive without ceasing

4.) Remain constantly in prayer

With that being said though, let us remember the point of all of this: to grow in virtue, holiness and in the love of God. Fighting the enemy is not the goal; it is just a means to the goal, which is to grow in the knowledge of the love of God until we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ.

“You don’t become holy by fighting evil. Let evil be. Look towards Christ and that will save you. What makes a person saintly is love.”

— St. Porphyrios

This post was inspired by reading Unseen Warfare. I highly recommend it!

(The photo is courtesy of Wildo Cagliani)

Now, I dont know about you, but something about that tugged a little at my heart. It sounds exciting. I want that. Its the kind of love we ‘oooh’ and ‘awww’ at when we hear about from our friends in relationships, the kind of love we dream about finding when ‘that’ song is played on the radio and the kind of love we watch in movies like ‘A Walk To Remember’ and let it touch us to the point of tears and that we can shout most of the lines with the actors at the screen from the amount of times we have watched it. They are our favourite movies after all!

Something about reckless abandon and love just fits. It clicks. It seems right, and it seems like we deserve it. And we just cant wait for it to show up and knock us off our feet. But why is it we call over our girlfriends for late night sleepovers that revolve around gushing and swooning about the lucky day that happens but when we apply those exact same sentiments, that same reckless abandon to God we struggle with that idea?

God is Dad, I obey Him. God is my Best friend, I’ll talk to him. But God is my lover, I’ll fall crazily-madly in love with Him and let him sweep me so off my feet that I can’t help talking about how sweet He is to all my friends and I cant help but let my heart break for what breaks His and I can’t help but only go where I can take Him with me because I like to hold His hand everywhere I go? No thank you.

Why is it we would all jump with joy if that man who caught our eye at church asked us out on a date for Valentine’s, but the idea of going to church with a rose to spend time sitting with our Creator seems pathetic and something to mock someone about? Why is it when one of our friends’ relationship goes official, tons of people like the photos they put up of themselves and comment about how cute and lucky they are but the idea of us posting a status about how much God has won our heart would make people want to click off the page as quickly as possible? Why is it our hearts sprint at a million beats per minute when that attractive man looks our way but when we open our Bibles and read His eternal promises, dripping with the unconditional love of His sacrifice, we find it difficult to not fall asleep? Why do we spend energy and time trying to find out the things the men we are interested in like and dislike (and coincidentally they start becoming the things we like or dislike!) but we’re more than happy to know the bare minimum of what Christ likes from us?

Isn’t it funny that it was all His idea anyway – this big old fairytale where we get fought for and rescued from our lonely misery to get lost on this epic adventure with the One who would die for us – but we refuse spending those desires on the One who created them and would rather spend them on that which He created? Isn’t it funny because in fact He’s actually the only One whose genuinely worth it, who genuinely deserves it.

Christ alone died for our hearts, Christ alone deserves our hearts. All of our hearts.

Have you ever thought that maybe it’s not too much of a bad idea to love Jesus with that much zeal and fervour the way we’d love our boyfriends or husbands one day, not being able to make it through an hour without thinking of them, always finding little ways to sneak in a little for time with them during your day. You see that’s how love was meant to work. It shouldn’t be any different because we are talking about God. If anything it should be more! His love is the most extravagant love, we’ll taste. Just think of the day you’ll see him face to face and you take that first look into the One whose eyes blaze with a jealous fire over you! But dont think of how you’ll feel, instead think of the happiness when He sees you (it’s that way in weddings – if we want to see joy, we look in the grooms face). If for the joy set before Him he endured the cross, can you imagine what will happen when he finally gets hold of that joy? When he finally grabs us and never lets go of our hands?

You are His joy. You are the life Christ died to save.

One day Jesus will gaze at us with satisfaction, and every bit of struggle, every bit of fighting I did to make Him my everything, my one and only True Love, every idol I refuse to flirt with, every time I refuse to exchange His role as my number one Comforter and Provider and Lover in my life for a man, every time I love him like crazy-all those times will be worth it. They won’t only be worth it, I’ll probably wish I’d have been more crazy for Him!