When Faith Becomes Bare Existence - Faith Without Consolation V

When nothing remains but the fact that you are still standing before God

“I believed, and so I spoke: I am deeply afflicted.”

Psalm 115 (116):10, Grail Translation

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There comes a point where faith no longer feels like belief.

It no longer feels like trust.

It no longer feels like anything at all.

It becomes something quieter. Something harder to recognize. Something stripped of every emotion that once made it visible.

It becomes existence.

The man still breathes.

He still wakes.

He still turns his face, however weakly, toward God.

But inside, everything that once sustained him has fallen away.

He does not feel faithful.

He does not feel hopeful.

He does not feel certain.

He only remains.

This remaining is not dramatic.

It does not resemble victory.

It resembles survival.

There was a time when faith meant conviction. It meant clarity. It meant the ability to speak about God with confidence and even joy. Prayer had warmth. The Scriptures had light. The heart responded.

But suffering changes this.

Time changes this.

Silence changes this.

God, without explanation, withdraws the awareness of His nearness. Not His nearness itself. The awareness of it.

And the soul is left standing without support.

St. Isaac the Syrian writes that there are moments when the soul is stripped of every consolation so that it may be taught a deeper knowledge of God that does not depend on feeling. This knowledge does not come through emotion. It comes through endurance.

Elder Sophrony called this existential faith.

Not psychological faith.

Not emotional faith.

Existential.

The faith of one who stands before God because there is nowhere else to stand.

The faith of one who no longer feels sustained by belief, but who cannot abandon the relationship.

This is where many misunderstand themselves.

They believe they have lost faith.

Because they have lost its feeling.

But faith was never the feeling.

Faith was the turning.

Faith was the remaining.

Christ revealed this most clearly not in His miracles, but in His endurance.

On the Cross, He experienced the full measure of abandonment. No voice answered Him. No relief came. No intervention stopped the suffering.

And yet He remained.

He did not descend.

He did not withdraw His offering.

He entrusted Himself into the hands of the Father even when those hands felt absent.

This is faith in its purest form.

Not faith that sees.

Faith that remains.

St. Silouan lived for years without consolation. He believed himself rejected. He believed himself unworthy of God. And yet he did not stop turning toward Him.

He continued to exist before God.

This existence became prayer.

Not the prayer of words.

The prayer of being.

Archimandrite Zacharias teaches that when a man stands before God without consolation and refuses to abandon Him, his very existence becomes an offering. He no longer offers thoughts, or emotions, or spiritual experiences. He offers himself.

This offering feels like poverty.

Because it is poverty.

The soul realizes it has nothing to give.

Nothing to present.

Nothing to rely upon.

And yet it remains.

This remaining is invisible to the world.

No one sees it.

No one applauds it.

It produces no outward success.

But heaven sees it.

Because it resembles Christ.

Christ on the Cross offered nothing outwardly impressive. He was broken. Mocked. Silent. Abandoned.

And yet He remained.

Faith at this depth does not feel like strength.

It feels like exposure.

It feels like standing without protection.

It feels like waiting without knowing what is coming.

Evagrios the Solitary taught that the purest prayer is prayer stripped of images, stripped of expectation, stripped of everything the mind uses to sustain itself.

This prayer often feels like nothing.

Because nothing false remains inside it.

The soul does not experience triumph here.

It experiences truth.

Truth without support.

Truth without illusion.

Truth without reward.

There are those who believe they have lost everything.

They do not realize they have been brought to the place where faith becomes identical with existence itself.

They wake.

They breathe.

They turn toward God without knowing why.

This turning, even when barely perceptible, sustains the relationship.

God does not measure faith by feeling.

He measures it by presence.

The one who remains before Him, even without hope, even without clarity, even without comfort, offers something more precious than emotional devotion.

He offers himself.

And God receives him.

Not because he feels worthy.

But because he remains.

This is the final poverty.

The poverty of one who has nothing left but God.

And who, without knowing how, continues to stand before Him.