Ask for the Fire, Not the Feeling

A Dialogue with St. Barsanuphius on Waiting, Purity of Heart, and the Gift of the Holy Spirit

Disciple:

Abba Barsanuphius, the Lord says, Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened. I ask, yet often I feel empty. I seek, yet the way seems hidden. I knock, yet the door does not open. What is lacking in me?

Barsanuphius:

Child, you ask with your lips, but your heart is still learning how to wait. The promise of the Lord is not false. But the gift He promises is not given to curiosity, nor to impatience, nor to a heart still cluttered with many voices.

Disciple:

Then what must I ask for, Abba? I ask for clarity, for peace, for relief from confusion and heaviness.

Barsanuphius:

Ask first for the Holy Spirit. Do not ask for light before the lamp is lit. Do not ask for direction before the Guide has come. When the Comforter is given, He Himself will teach you what to ask, what to seek, and when to knock.

Disciple:

But I am afraid, Abba. I fear being deceived. I fear mistaking my own thoughts for God’s voice.

Barsanuphius:

This fear is a gift, if you do not let it harden into anxiety. The Spirit of God does not enter a heart that is noisy with self-assurance. He enters a heart that trembles, that confesses its blindness, that prefers obedience to insight. Where the Spirit dwells, deceit cannot remain.

Disciple:

Yet in the silence, despondency comes. Melancholy presses upon my mind. I begin to wonder whether I am abandoned.

Barsanuphius:

Silence reveals what was already there. Despondency is not born in the desert; it is uncovered there. Do not flee because of it. Prepare the heart as a temple, not as a refuge from struggle. Sweep it with patience. Wash it with tears. Guard it with humility. The Spirit does not despise a wounded heart, but He does not dwell in a careless one.

Disciple:

How do I prepare this temple, Abba, while I wait and feel myself being purified in fire?

Barsanuphius:

By endurance without complaint. By prayer without demand. By love without explanation. The crucible you speak of is not meant to destroy you, but to burn away what would deceive you later. Better to be purified in silence now than deluded by sweetness later.

Disciple:

Then the waiting itself is prayer?

Barsanuphius:

Yes. Waiting borne in faith is already the work of the Spirit, though you do not yet perceive Him. The Spirit teaches secretly before He teaches clearly. He guards the heart before He illumines the mind.

Disciple:

And when He comes?

Barsanuphius:

He will not shout. He will quiet you. He will not multiply thoughts. He will gather them. He will not excite the heart. He will steady it. He will not permit despondency to rule, nor melancholy to deceive you with false humility. He will illumine the eyes, strengthen the heart, and lift the intellect toward God without violence.

Disciple:

Pray for me, Abba, that I may not seek gifts before the Giver.

Barsanuphius:

I pray that you ask only for the Spirit, and that you make your heart ready for His dwelling. For where the Holy Spirit abides, there is no deceit, no delusion, and no despair: only truth, patience, and a love made pure in silence.