The Path of Obedience
Quotes taken from ‘The Engraving of Christ in Man’s Heart’, by Archimandrite Zacharias of Essex
How can we know the will of God? As we are fallen and cling to creation rather than to the Creator, our nature is divided; we have many inclinations, many desires and attachments. We are primarily psychological beings who do not accept the things which are of the Spirit. Our human psychology is not favourably disposed towards the commandment of God. In order to become receptive to God’s will, we must have a contrite spirit, for without contrition, we remain closed to the current of divine life.
Great is the theme of obedience. According to the Fathers of the Church it is of equal value to martyrdom. It is ranked even above prayer because prayer is given to us, essentially, through obedience. We meet the same view in the writings of Saint Silouan as well: ‘The obedient soul is beloved of the Holy Spirit, and soon knows the Lord and receives the gift of prayer of the heart.’ How does this happen? Through obedience, man surrenders his entire life into the hands of God. As destitute and dependent on God he unceasingly makes supplication to Him and awaits salvation as a divine gift. Thus he avoids the delusion of self-sufficiency into which Adam fell.
Obedience does not only mean to cast off our attachment to the things of the world, but also to cast out from within us the causes of this attachment, to uproot the passions. Above all, obedience means the opening of the heart … to the word of God. True obedience is a disposition of the heart.
The man who obeys is in essence a man of faith. Christ is named in the Book of Revelation: ‘the faithful witness’. Likewise, the man who imitates Christ in obedience receives the Spirit of Christ and attains in this way to continuous prayer and stability of life.
Man was created by God. The living breath of God imparted to him divine life. It was, therefore, natural that he should have one will and be the centre of the created world, while the world, with man as its choirmaster, was turned towards the uncreated Sun of paradise. So it was natural that there should be only one will, one glory and one worship in the whole created world. For the one God reigns over all people and over all things. When Adam was tempted and fell, he preferred the autonomy of delusion. Thus his nature became split and, consequently, his will was also divided. From the moment man turns once again towards God, he needs to cast off all his desires, so that the will of his corruptible nature be denied and completely submitted to the will of God.
What can be more valuable to man than his own will? This, therefore, is what he sacrifices and abandons for the sake of the greater will of God. This abandonment, this sacrifice, is well-pleasing to God. In this lies the power of the mystery of obedience. We offer a sacrifice well-pleasing to God, and in exchange God gives us a broken and a humble spirit. When the arrogance of our fallen nature is crushed, a humble spirit comes to us and predisposes our soul to receive the commandments of Christ in an absolute way, so that they may become the sole law of our existence.
“Before I was afflicted I went astray;
but now I keep thy word.” Psalm 119:67Since we were exiled from paradise because of disobedience, there can be no other path of return for us than the path of obedience.
Through the fall, man’s being was divided and he acquired many wills, all proceeding towards futility. But when he renounces his corrupted will, God grants him to know His own great will. Unfortunately, not only man’s will suffered corruption, but also his thoughts. His mind became carnal, that is, darkened. Now his struggle is to find those thoughts and that mind of ‘the simplicity that is in Christ’, so as to be able to accept God’s will and not fall into delusion.
Obedience has many aspects and the one that is the most shocking to the world is the abdication of all reason for the sake of faith in the commandment, as well as our surrendering of ourselves to it. We see that we struggle to find divine life and the divine will, and we perceive that we fall short in our fallen state. This, in essence, is why obedience appears to be foolishness to those outside the Church, but to those who have faith it becomes wisdom and a means to gain the power of God. When we abandon our own will, our own thoughts, we lay aside small and useless things, whereas that which we receive in return is infinite.
There are two levels of life and two levels of knowledge. The one is of the visible world in which we live and the other of the invisible world of the Kingdom of God. The visible world, which has man as its centre, has been profoundly damaged by disobedience and is now to be found at an impasse. The only possible way out is obedience, otherwise there will always be conflicts and insoluble problems. As we are placed between two worlds, in two realities, living mostly in an external way, that is with our reasoning rather than with our heart, we find it hard to arrive at spiritual stability. The only way to become stable ‘in all of our ways’ is to accept the word of obedience. This initiates us into the mystery of the Lord’s instruction, where we see God offering Himself to us as to His children. We have become carnal and we live carnally. We need to undergo a great change in order to become spirit and live spiritually. This is a complicated process which often causes pain and despair. If however we have been trained in obedience, we shall always give justice to God and to our master, turning all the arrows of blame upon ourselves.