The Hidden Work of God in Darkness - Faith Without Consolation VI

What God is doing when nothing seems to be happening

“Truly, You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.”

Isaiah 45:15

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There is a moment when the soul stops expecting relief.

Not because it has found peace.

Because it has grown tired of hoping.

Prayer continues, but without anticipation. The heart no longer looks for consolation. It no longer looks for change. It no longer looks for anything.

It simply endures.

And it is here, in this place where nothing appears to be happening, that God is working most deeply.

But His work is hidden.

Not only from the world.

From the soul itself.

This is what makes the darkness unbearable. Not only the suffering, but the absence of visible meaning within it. The absence of progress. The absence of movement.

Everything feels suspended.

The fathers speak of this with terrifying clarity.

St. Isaac the Syrian writes that when God begins to purify the soul, He permits it to pass through fire without explaining what He is doing. He removes the sweetness of prayer. He removes the awareness of His presence. He removes every support the soul once relied upon.

Not to destroy the soul.

To reveal it.

Because as long as the soul feels sustained by consolation, it does not yet know itself. It does not yet see how much of its devotion was intertwined with the desire for comfort, for reassurance, for emotional stability.

When these supports disappear, something painful is revealed.

The soul discovers its poverty.

It discovers that it cannot sustain itself.

It discovers that it cannot manufacture faith.

It discovers that it is far weaker than it believed.

This discovery feels like collapse.

But it is truth.

Elder Sophrony taught that God allows this stripping so that the soul may be freed from illusion. As long as a man believes himself strong, he does not yet stand in reality. He stands in imagination.

God removes imagination.

Not by argument.

By silence.

The silence of God destroys false images of God.

The God who always comforts.

The God who always reassures.

The God who always intervenes.

This imagined God cannot survive the darkness.

And this feels like loss.

Because the soul confuses the image of God with God Himself.

Archimandrite Zacharias writes that grace often works most powerfully when it is least perceived. When God hides His presence, He is teaching the soul to live by truth, not by sensation. He is teaching it to remain in relationship without needing to feel the relationship.

This is the destruction of spiritual selfishness.

Not selfishness in the obvious sense.

Spiritual selfishness.

The hidden expectation that God exists to sustain our emotional stability.

When this expectation dies, something else begins to emerge.

Not immediately.

Slowly.

Almost imperceptibly.

The soul becomes quieter.

Not because it has found answers.

Because it has stopped demanding them.

The soul becomes more truthful.

Not because it has gained clarity.

Because it has lost the ability to pretend.

The soul becomes more humble.

Not because it has chosen humility.

Because suffering has revealed its weakness.

St. Silouan lived in this hidden purification for years. He believed himself abandoned. He believed himself lost. He believed God had turned away from him.

And yet, beneath his awareness, grace was forming him.

Not through consolation.

Through endurance.

God was teaching him to remain without needing to feel sustained.

This is the hidden work of God.

It does not appear as progress.

It appears as loss.

It does not appear as strength.

It appears as weakness.

It does not appear as life.

It appears as death.

Christ Himself entered this hidden work.

In the tomb, nothing appeared to be happening.

The disciples saw only failure.

The world saw only defeat.

Even hell believed it had won.

But in that hidden place, Christ was destroying death itself.

Silently.

Invisibly.

The soul that passes through darkness shares in this mystery.

It believes nothing is happening.

It believes it has been abandoned.

It believes it is losing everything.

It does not realize that God is dismantling everything false.

Every illusion of control.

Every illusion of strength.

Every illusion of independence.

Until only truth remains.

Until only the soul remains.

And God.

This work cannot be seen while it is happening.

It can only be endured.

Evagrios the Solitary wrote that the greatest spiritual progress often takes place beyond the awareness of the one who is progressing. Because if the soul could see its own progress, pride would immediately claim it.

So God conceals His work.

To protect the soul.

From itself.

There are those who believe they are regressing because they no longer feel close to God.

They do not realize that God is drawing them closer than feeling can reach.

Closer than emotion.

Closer than thought.

Closer than perception.

He is teaching them to live by reality alone.

Not by experience.

Not by reassurance.

By reality.

And reality is this.

God has not left.

He is working in secret.

In the silence.

In the darkness.

In the place where the soul has nothing left to hold onto but Him.

And even there, He holds it.