When God Forces Us to See Ourselves

Synopsis of Tonight’s Group on The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian Homily 6 paragraphs 1-4:

St Isaac begins Homily Six like one who will not let us hide from ourselves. He does not admire our efforts nor comfort our vanity. He forces us to look directly at what we are and at what we truly desire. A man who slips into accidental sins, he says, is not wicked but weak. And God allows this weakness to appear so that the conscience is pierced and the truth becomes unavoidable. God does not let the soul rise above these falls before its second birth because He wants us awake rather than respectable. Our failures become a kind of mercy. They expose the illusion that we are strong or self sufficient or spiritually advanced. They ask one question above all others. Do you desire God at all

It is a raw question. A frightening question. Yet every stumble presses it deeper into the heart. If we fall and tremble the heart is alive. If we fall and justify ourselves the heart is asleep. Isaac calls that shameless. He says that without fervent faith or fear or chastisement the soul will never truly draw near to the love of God. These are not punishments but the three torches that light the way toward Him. If I resist them I do not want God himself. I want an idol shaped like comfort or control or admiration.

Then Isaac turns to the roots beneath the roots. Turbulent thoughts come from gluttony. Ignorance and superficiality come from constant talk. Worry over worldly matters scatters the soul like chaff tossed into the wind. These are not merely moral observations. They are spiritual symptoms. They show us the condition of the heart. I can fast until my stomach twists and keep vigil until my knees ache yet if my thoughts are full of resentment or anxious grasping or the need to preserve my image then all my labors remain barren. The body strains while the passions settle deeper into the mind. Nothing changes because nothing inside has surrendered.

Isaac gives an image that cuts to the bone. The man who clings to anxiety or covetousness or the memory of wrongs is like one who sows seed into thorns. He works. He sweats. He prays. He begs God to respond. Yet when he lies on his bed he groans because he cannot reap a harvest. The soil itself has been sabotaged by his thoughts. He fasts and wonders why God does not see. He humbles himself outwardly yet inwardly still clings to his own desires. God answers through the prophet. In the very day of your fasts you do your own wills. You sacrifice your free will to your own idols when you should be offering it to Me. It is one of the most devastating revelations in Scripture. The greatest offering we possess is the free will. And we lay it not on the altar of God but before our own desires.

Here Isaac is not simply giving ascetical instruction. He is tearing open the heart to expose its truth. He is asking us to face the one question we spend our lives avoiding. Do you really want God or do you only want the appearance of holiness. Do you want the Kingdom or do you want the feeling of being spiritual. Do you want the fire of God or do you want to protect your own self created identity. Until we answer this honestly all asceticism remains external and fruitless.

The early lines of Homily Six are not gentle. They are surgical. They strip away excuses and self deception. They show us that the spiritual life is not perfected by effort alone but by the purification of desire. Not by striving but by surrender. Not by vigils and fasts but by a heart emptied of its own will. I will never know God until I want Him more than I want myself. And my accidental sins are the strange mercy that reveals how much I still cling to myself.

Isaac begins with our weakness so that we might finally seek the One who heals. He begins with our falls so that true longing may rise. He reveals our poverty so that desire for God might no longer be a sentence we say but a cry that burns within us.