When Faith Is All I Have Left

Choosing the Path of Blood Over the Safety of Standing Still

“Let not your much wisdom become a stumbling-block to your soul… but trusting in God, manfully make a beginning upon the way that is filled with blood.”

— St. Isaac the Syrian

There are days when I realize that most of what I call discernment is just fear dressed in religious language. I say I am being careful. I say I am waiting for clarity. I say I am weighing things wisely. But underneath all of it there is a small trembling creature in me that does not want to bleed. Isaac names that creature without mercy. He says the one who watches the winds never sows. He stands in the field with seed in his hand and calls it prudence while the ground remains empty.

I feel that in myself right now. I feel how easy it is to keep circling the same questions because as long as I am circling I do not have to step into the path that is red with blood. I do not have to make the beginning that would cost me the future I still secretly hope to keep. There is a part of me that still wants a life that is safe, coherent, respected, explained. Isaac cuts that part out. He says that hope for this present life enfeebles the thinking. It makes the soul weak. It makes faith thin. It keeps me from laying my whole body down on the altar.

So I pray like a blind man who has no map. O Lord guide me despite my blindness. I do not know where I am going. I only know where You have placed me. Let me hold fast to Your promises and not to my own projections. Let me hope in You alone and not in some future that would finally justify me. Let me remain where You have set me, in repentance and unceasing prayer, even if that place feels small and humiliating and unfinished.

If affliction weighs upon me, let me rest in it as in Your hands. That is the hardest line to live. I do not want to rest in affliction. I want to get out of it. I want to fix it. I want to find the door that leads to relief. But Isaac says death in battle for God’s sake is better than a shameful and sluggish life. That means there are kinds of suffering that are holy and kinds of safety that are deadly. It means that staying where the knife is cutting may be more faithful than running toward what feels spiritually attractive.

I can feel how divided my heart still is. One part wants God. Another part wants guarantees. One part wants the Kingdom. Another part wants to survive intact. Isaac leaves no room for that. He says do not begin any good work with a divided soul. That line terrifies me because it exposes how often I have tried to serve God while secretly keeping a hand on the door.

So I am asking for a different kind of courage. Not the courage to be impressive. Not the courage to be certain. But the courage to be small and exposed and faithful in the place I have been given. I want to believe with my heart that the Lord is merciful. Not because I have done enough, but because I am willing to love Him with what little I have and to trust Him with what I do not understand.

If this path is filled with blood, let it be so. I do not want a life that looks successful if it costs me the knowledge of God. I would rather be wounded and real than safe and empty. A thousand years of this age are not worth one day of being held in His truth.

So I make the beginning again today. Not with confidence. With faith. With trembling. With hope that does not come from this life. With a heart that is tired of circling and ready, at last, to step forward into whatever waits for me in God.