We see divine action when we look at things sufficiently

Book 1, Chapter 2

-Part 11-

Continued some more …

Whether by agitation, misfortune or our own foolishness, we can happen upon a difficult life. Whether they are life-threatening or merely bothersome, difficulties arrive unwelcome at our door and force their way easily in. We can blame it on the breakage around us, the breakage within us, or even piously claim it as the will of God, but harsh things happen to us or to those whom we love and we are darkened by them.

We are darkened by them unless we are content.

Two Pauline statements come to mind: “I have learned to manage with whatever I have,” or “to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” (Philippians 4:11) And, “We are well aware that God works with those who love him, those who have been called in accordance with his purpose, and turns everything to their good.” (Romans 8:28)

While I believe these words with all my heart, I still prefer non-difficult days. I have a very natural rating system that considers hard, miserable times as bad; and happy, carefree times as good. On a scale of 1-10, I like everything from 6.5 up, and I do not like anything 4 or lower. I can quote the above believed verses until the cows come home, but I cannot help myself. I prefer ease.

On this score Caussade says he doesn’t pay any mind to whether God’s will – his divine action – comes to him in the form of storm or calm:

_{“Thy action is suficient for me; in whatever manner it causes me to live and die I am content. It pleases me for its own sake apart from the means it employs and the effects it produces.” (Page 36)}

Only an abject trust in God can lead a man to make such statements about the things that might happen to him in life and to see that the true gift through all the occurrences in his life is that God has been active in and around him. This trust can be discovered in the life of the Christian with two tools common to all believers: A developed life of prayer, and being personally, actively involved in divine action.

The means by which God’s divine action enters the life of the believer can be devastating, radical, hideous. The observed effects of this action in such a life could be minimal, obscure or completely invisible. If we are honest, we will admit that we want God’s action in our lives to come to us only through means that are comfortable and fun. Further, we will want whatever God does with our life to be meaningful if not earth-shattering.

It was Thoreau who said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Many of those quietly desperate people are Christians who fail to see that God is active in and around them – or they have failed to respond to his activity. The whole of Caussade’s involvement in divine action is in seeing and responding. Failure to see or to respond breaks down our involvement in divine action. We know ourselves to be ordinary and unnoticed. This, we believe, takes us out of the running for God to do anything of significance with us. Like Elisha’s servant at Dothan, we are not seeing the vast spiritual activity that is going on right before us. (See 2 Kings 6:15-17, where the servant is permitted to see “the mountain filled with horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha” to ensure the defeat of a great Syrian army amassed around the city to seize the prophet and end the divine aid to Israel through him.)

The key to this perception – this way of seeing – according to our guide, and made apparent by the Elisha story, is to “look at things sufficiently”:

_{“we do not look at things sufficiently in that supernatural mode of being which divine action gives them.” (Page 36)}

The key to responding faithfully, Caussade says, is to possess and be at home in the “land of the spirit,” and to approach the divine action of God …

_{“… in order to be the simple subjects of its operation.” (Page 39)}

It is a lifetime of work, but the spiritual life that is indeed attached to the will of God moment by moment is the one that sees and responds.