Scripture: 1 Samuel 16
Reading: Abandonment to Divine Providence Book I Chapter II Section VI
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“To all this there is but one answer—that the will of God is the only thing necessary, therefore what it does not grant must be useless… If you only knew what these events really are that you call misfortunes, accidents, and disappointments, and in which you can see nothing but what is irrelevant, or unreasonable, you would lie deeply ashamed and excuse yourselves of your complainings as of blasphemies; but you never think of them as being the will of God, and His adorable will is blasphemed by His own children who refuse to acknowledge it.”
This is a difficult reading this morning. Not difficult to understand what the words are saying, but difficult to accept what the words are meaning. “The life of faith is a continual strugle against the senses,” Says de Cussade. This is contrary to what todays feel good preachers preach, but is a common thought going back to the churches earliest days. The spirit does not make peace with the senses, on the contrary the senses always are at work opposing faith mantaining a constant state of war to which there is little repreave, but only in God’s mercy. Yet in this state of war faith is made stronger and more perfect. Even Samuel fought the battle of the senses when the Lord spoke to Samuel,
16:1 Now the LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons.”
16:2 And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.”
I love this exchange for the truth that it contains. Samuel mourned for Saul, He knew that Saul was faux stand in for the One True King whom Israel rejected – yet somehow Samuel is struggling with the fact that Saul was rejected as king even to the point of when the Lord commands the great prophet of God to go to annoint another Samuel fires back at God, “If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” This comforts me in my pain, for if this great prophet who spoke one on one with God mourned and feared then I find myself in good company. The scripture is full of such examples. You would think if Samuel were really spiritual he would have been not focused on the negative, but on the positive… God has selected a king after His own heart. Was Samuel a spiritual wimp or was he truly a spiritual man proving that God’s word is true? Crucifiction was a process of slow and miserable death not an instant death as beheading. Romans were beheaded, fast and painless everyone else crucified. Paul described the death of the flesh as coming by crucifiction a slow and painful process of death.
“The divine action by one and the same stroke kills and gives life; the more one feels the death to the senses and reason, the more convinced should one become that it gives life to the soul. The more obscure the mystery to us, the more light it contains in itself. This is why a simple soul will discover a more divine meaning in that which has the least appearance of having any.”
Holy, Loving Father I thank you Lord that You are in not only the details of life, but in the details of the pains of our hearts. The mourning and grief we share in common with all flesh are nothing but a door way to Your Presence if we would yield our wills. I thank you Lord that each tear that falls to the earth is one that also falls in Heaven and that instead of condemning Your Holy Spirit comes to comfort and to guide me into Your truth in love and not is rebuke for You have created our senses and You are most loving and gracious to us in our lack of faith, remaining faithful to complete that perfect work that You have begun in our hearts.
