My child, man's life is full of sorrow because he is in exile. Do not seek perfect rest. Since our Christ bore His cross, we shall bear ours, too. If we endure all afflictions, we shall receive grace from the Lord. The Lord allows us to be tempted, so that He can test the zeal and love we have for Him. Therefore patience is needed. Without patience, a person does not obtain experience, acquire spiritual knowledge, or obtain any measure of virtue and perfection.
-- St. Joseph the Hesychast, Letter Seven in Monastic Wisdom: The Letters of Saint Joseph the Hesychast. Florence, Arizona: Saint Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery, 2016.

How often do we, who have grown up in the West with it's "Name It and Claim It" theology, über rich televangelists promising prosperity, our cult of Hollywood personalities, and "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" fall for all things instant? Instant ramen noodles. Instant mashed potato flakes. Fast food from any number of local and global chains. A journey that took my ancestors nearly five months to go from Winter Quarters, Nebraska Territory (modern day Omaha, Nebraska) to Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory (modern day Salt Lake City, Utah) now takes about three hours by Boeing jetliner and we complain at the cramped conditions in coach or business class.

The spiritual life does not allow for these instant gratifications. First, we have to understand that we are not gratifying anything. "Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me," Christ said. (St. Matthew 16:24; cf. vv. 25-26) We are called to lose our lives for His sake, not to live our best lives now. This means carrying a heavy and painful burden to Golgotha.

This journey is slow. Barring some unusual grace from heaven, we will make this journey slowly because we are needing to make changes at a fundamental inner level. Anyone who has simply tried to break bad habits knows how hard this is for us mere mortals. We do not like to cooperate with the removal of anything we have grown accustomed to -- even if it is unhealthy in some way. So much of what we do is rooted in secret pride and we have to come to understand that. We have to get exposed to it step by step and that takes time. Then it takes even more time because we have to resist it root it out.

It is a painful journey. Painful because we have not been connected to the Source of our life as we should. We have to first disconnect from our sinful ways in order to be prepared to receive grace. God will not gift us with something we are not prepared for. As a parent, my daughter asked me for the keys to our van once -- she was going to drive us to the store -- but I said no. She was shocked that I would just deny her that request out of hand. She was six or seven years old. She was not prepared by physical size, she was not prepared by practice driving, nor was she prepared under the law with a license and insurance. I could see that clearly from my vantage point as a thirty-something year old parent. She could not and was mildly upset when I said no. Today, at twenty-two, she owns her own car, drives very well, and even does her own oil changes. Our Heavenly Father has the celestial version of that vantage point over us. He knows we must be prepared for it before we receive something important. He knows that when we are properly prepared to receive it, we will be more likely not to make mistakes or abuse it. We will, to use human terms, "own" it and take care of it. That takes time and preparation and often some pain, either in spiritual growth or in the removal of a spiritual tumor we did not know we had or thought benign.

"Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand." (James 5:7-8)

Submission, Not Surrender

For many years now, I have said that we ought not to surrender to Christ our God. This ruffles many Christian feathers, but give me a chance to explain why I don't like this term, "surrender," in describing the Christian's relationship to God.

You see, surrender is what you do on a battlefield when you have only the choice to give up or die and you don't want to die. It is what one enemy does toward the other. When you surrender, you don't love your enemy. You're not suddenly on his side. You will, as a matter of duty and principle, look for any chance of escape to take up arms against him again -- or at least to leave the war and go home away from your enemy. In short, there is nothing cooperative in being the prisoner of the enemy. It certainly doesn't benefit the one who surrenders. One need only to think about the American POWs in Vietnam, Korea, or Germany to get a good picture of how it works. It's all about power and compulsion of one side against the other. In short, it's about being and remaining enemies.

Jesus, loved us. He laid down His life voluntarily for us. He set the example and invited us into a relationship of mutual love and benefit. That doesn't require surrender, it requires submission to Him. What's the difference, you ask? Submission is given freely. Submission is given out of love for the one submitted to. It does not look for an avenue and chance for escape. It seeks to stay -- forever -- in a relationship of mutual love.

Jesus Christ, in His submission to the Father, emptied Himself, submitted Himself to an earthly life for the sake of gaining our love and restoring us to a proper relationship to the Father. In this, He set the example for how we ought to approach an submit to the Holy Trinity.

Only through submission can we act in synergy with the grace that God gives us to empower our return to Him.  

Saints Polycarp and Ignatius as Examples for Christians in the Current Decline of the West

I just read an Intellectual Takeout article about the decline of the West. The original poster commented that many of their Conservative friends have dived headlong into the arts and traditions of the past that made the Western world what it was (not is, really) as they make their retreat from the political theater that has utterly failed them.

I think that if you are Christian (Orthodox especially, but heterodox as well), you need a very different orientation. Western civilization as great as it can be (and has been), is not going to save anyone. Only Christ can do this.

I would suggest you read about how the Church survived the communists in Russia and in eastern Europe. I have two titles for you. The first is Russia's Catacomb Saints by I.M. Andreyev (Ivan Mikhailovich Andreyevsky) which is still widely available for free online. The second one is Christ is Calling You: A Course in Catacomb Pastorship by Fr. George Calciu, a Romanian Orthodox priest who spent decades in and out of political prisons for his faith. For those who are of a Protestant disposition, Wurmbrand's Tortured for Christ is of a similar quality to the other two. In all of these books you can learn how the Church survived the terrible trials of communism and emerged victorious. The disposition of voluntary martyrdom, both the living and mortal varieties, is clearly illustrated. We need to adopt this attitude. That brings me to my next point.

The willing martyrdom (again, both varieties) is illustrated extremely well in the early Church. If you never read any other Fathers of the Church, read St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Polycarp of Smyrna. They were dear friends and brother bishops. The did not find their life so valuable that they were unwilling to suffer for the Faith. In this lies the secret of their closeness and the example we can follow. Both of these bishops were slain for their faith. St. Ignatius wrote seven letters as he journeyed to his death in the Coliseum in Rome. In the letter he sent ahead to the Christians at Rome, he begged them not to beg for his life so as not to deprive him of his martyr's crown. He was fed to the lions for the entertainment of a vulgar crowd. St. Polycarp's martyrdom is the subject of one of the earliest hagiographies in the Church's history. This is the orientation that we should adopt.

As many have pointed out, "martyr" simply means "witness." Both living martyrs and mortal (i.e., those killed) martyrs have born witness to the Faith of Jesus Christ throughout the Church's history. We must, if we are to follow Christ, lay down our lives and take up our crosses. When we lay down our lives, we leave it to Christ whether we keep or lose our lives for His glory. No matter what route Christ chooses for you, it is for your salvation and for the salvation of those around you.

[Now, before anyone says "surrender" to Christ, I contend that it is not "surrender," but "submission." They're not the same, but that's for a different post.]