The Inner Life

 

 When one considers the millions who call themselves Christians, the main impression one gets is that in our time the Christian religion consists almost exclusively in going to church on Sunday mornings. I know there are exceptions, but we have to be realistic: the church has very little to say to young people –they are bored by church services and preaching, and so they turn to other things. Yet people are vaguely aware that there is something wrong with their inner life. And even if they don’t go to their pastor or priest about it, they do seek help, often by going to a psychiatrist. It is true that once the inner person really changes, everything else will change. But that will come about through God, not through people.

Christ taught that there should be a complete change in every person, and that this change should begin in our inner being. Peter and the apostles taught the same at Pentecost. When the people asked Peter, “What should we do?” he said, “Believe, repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus.” And when they responded, the inner change that took place carried over into the practical and economic areas of their lives. They laid everything at the feet of the apostles and no longer owned anything. Everyone gave up his property voluntarily, yet since each one shared everything with the others, no one suffered need.

For our time, too, we believe in a new society like this, brought about by a change that starts in our inner being. When God enters our inner life, the change he brings will also affect our outer life. If our Christianity is a religion for Sunday morning only, it will remain shallow and empty.

 What does it mean to be created in the image of God? When God breathed life into the first man, he gave every human being the possibility of experiencing the richness of heart that is in Him: love, joy, humor, wrath, suffering, purity, and unity. Because all these things are familiar to us, we can see that something of God is in us –though often in a very distorted way. The image of God is preserved most purely in children. As adults we often live very petty lives as very petty souls; our thinking centers around ourselves only and is unrelated to God. But we are created for more than this. I don’t think any one of us has yet experienced to the full the richness of spirit, soul, and heart created by God for us to enjoy. Yet as his children, we are able to experience these things as no other creatures can. And he loves us so much that he sent his only Son to save us. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 6:3) he says that the church “is to judge the angels.” This should give us an inkling of the deep meaning of our calling and of what it means that we are made in the image of God. (Acts 17:24 1 Cor 6:19)

God created heaven, earth, and all the constellations of the universe. He also created something else, something very mysterious: the human spirit. God created this spirit and placed it in us because he wants to live in us. The Bible says that he does not live in temples built with hands – we ourselves should be temples for him.

 My father used to say to us that stupidity is the greatest sin. He did not mean simplicity of mind, but spiritual dullness: having a dead conscience and not listening in one’s heart to God. Very few people today have any idea of the riches of the human heart. Our hearts are created to experience great things; most of us have no idea of what could happen in our lives if we would overcome our stupidity and dullness.

Paul says: Eph 3:16-19, I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that being rooted and established in love you may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge –that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

 If we were to grasp this one passage, we would understand the whole Gospel. We are not filled with the fullness of God and it would be arrogant to think we were. But Paul’s prayer should awaken and inspire us!

Isa. 55:3 God said to Israel: “Pay heed to me and listen, and your souls will live!” It is tremendously important to be able to turn to God with one’s whole being and to believe that he will speak. Everything depends on our asking him to speak to us. If we hear nothing from God for a long time, it may be because there is something between us and heaven –perhaps we lack love to our brother, or we are at odds with our spouse. If this is the case, our waiting is in vain. Of course, we cannot expect answers from God after only five minutes of silence. Think how long Jesus himself sometimes had to wait! But the more our lives belong to Christ, and the deeper our relationship with him, the more quickly he will answer us, and the more quickly he can use us for his tasks, because he knows that here is someone who is completely ready for him.

 

 Meister Eckhardt* emphasized the importance of the listening heart, by which he meant a heart that listens to God alone. He said that God desires nothing more than a heart that detaches itself in silence from everything and turns and listens to him. This means detachment from mammon, impurity, and schadenfreude or malice; from lying, mistrust, and hatred; from worldly spirits and from all other spirits foreign to him.

When people are healthy and happy, or when their economic foundation is stable, they all too often become lukewarm. They may give over to God the things they feel are not healthy in them –things that bring them distress or struggle. Yet even when these things drive them to prayer, they reserve their innermost person for themselves.

The fact that we seek God at all in times of misfortune shows us that our deepest being actually hungers and thirsts for him. We should bring our fears to God; we should bring him our sickness and anguish. But this is not enough. We must give him our innermost being, our heart and soul. When we humble ourselves before him in this way and give ourselves completely over to him –when we no longer resist giving him our whole person and whole personality –then he can help us, first by bringing us to bankruptcy and then by filling us with true life.

  The main thing for you should be to recognize the greatness of God and to live for him. Try to read the Bible – at least two or three chapters every day. This will open your eyes to the greatness of Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts. Then you will see how very small the search for personal happiness is.

 When the devil incites you to hate others, I advise you to find inner quiet. You know that in your deepest heart you do not want this hatred. I can very well understand how unhappy you feel. Try, however, to become absolutely quiet inwardly, and believe that God loves you and wants to help you, even if this belief is attacked by doubts again and again. Then your fear will be slowly overcome. If you try to fight your emotions with other emotions, you will only become more confused. You cannot straighten out your emotions, but you can trust in God: he knows your deepest heart, and he can straighten you out. Believe in him alone.

 You ask how to find inner quiet. Remember Jesus’ words about prayer; they are very (Mt. 6:6) important: “Go into your room, lock the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and he, who sees what is secret, will reward you.” If you detach yourself from your feelings and from the excitements of your life and seek God in this detachment from self, you will find peace of heart.

Long prayers are not always effective. Jesus even warns us against them. They are usually more pagan than Christian. Let your prayer life be more alive! But do not force it –let it be quite free. When prayer becomes something living to you, the fire of the Spirit will flare up, and this will bring you life!

 We cannot live without a personal prayer life. We need prayer as much as we need water. All of us need times of quiet before God. Jesus clearly (Mt 6:1-6) says that we should not make a show of our prayers; we should close the door behind us and not speak about them. Yet hidden, personal prayer is absolutely necessary and just as important as the communal prayers of the whole church.

 

We tend to pray only for what we want and give little thought to what God wants of us at a particular moment. I sometimes think God would answer our prayers sooner if they were directed more to doing his will, and if our hearts were moved by the good spirit to ask what God wanted. Let me say it like this: God needs us every day – he needs people to carry out his will – so we should not pray for what we would like, but rather ask for the strength to do what he would have us do.

 God needs people who ask for his will to be done; if no one is interested in it, he must leave his work on earth undone. But if there are people who stretch out their hands to him in longing, asking and seeking for his will to be done, then he can do something in this world. It is wrong to think that everything comes by itself, that nothing is expected of us. Jesus taught us to (Mt. 6:10) pray for God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

 We must also ask for God’s will to be done in our personal lives. Because the Evil One tries again and again to lead us onto the wrong path, we must turn to God daily and ask him to renew our hearts. But we should pray not only for ourselves; we should pray for the whole world– for all humanity and all nations.

 There is wrong prayer –self-willed prayer. But if the object of our prayer is in accordance with the will of Jesus, then it is right. As long as there is nothing of self-will or self-glory mixed into it, it is not wrong.

 It is completely foreign to the way of Jesus to make selfish requests in his name, for instance to wish for a successful career or for a thousand dollars. When Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do,” he means whatever glorifies the Father and the Son. (Jn. 14:13)

 In our prayer life we need to listen to the spirit of God. What God wants to tell us is of greater importance than what we want to tell him. Therefore common silence shared in the faith that he wants to speak to each heart will always be meaningful for us.

We should always believe that our prayers will be answered, even if they are not answered straight away. Daniel prayed earnestly to God for days for the forgiveness of his sins and for the forgiveness of Israel’s sins. Yet he received no answer for three weeks. Then an angel appeared to him in a vision and said: (Dan. 10:12-13)

Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the very first day that you applied your mind to understand and mortify yourself before your God, your prayers have been heard, and I have come in answer to them. But the evil angel prince of the kingdom of Persia resisted me for twenty-one days, until Michael, one of the chief princes of heaven, came to help me.

So Daniel’s prayers were heard from the beginning, but dark powers made it difficult for the angel who answered him to break through. Today, despite the victory of the cross, there are still dark powers at work. Our prayers, like Daniel’s, may often not be answered straightaway. Yet God hears them. We should firmly believe this.

Give everything over to Jesus. The more you give everything over to him, the more his spirit will fill you. Even the most sincere Christians go through times of inner dryness in which God wants to test them. But then he floods them with his great love. So do not despair if you feel inner dryness.

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