Day 8: Abandonment

The world in which we live invites us to stay busy. Rather than an invitation to be calm, peaceful, or serene, we place a value on our being with what we do. If I am doing something, then I am somebody.

To be “like” God or like someone we are not is a never ending task. It is 666 never reaching seven. It is doing rather than being.

Striving to be anything other than who we are leads us to despair. Yet, “doing” rather than “being” is what the world offers. We are always taught to be on the go, to have a work ethic, to achieve our dreams, and to play hard.

Reaching for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was our first act of “doing” and our first step away from being. The act of doing is a response to the greatest lie offered by Satan: “If you want to be like God you need to work at it.”

As we consider Saint Michael, perhaps we should avoid the image of the Prince of the Heavenly Host in an act of physical war. Rather, we should witness him defeat Satan by whispering into the ears of all souls, “Be yourself!”

Being created and graced is not “our doing.”. If there is any “doing” at all it is found in the act of abandonment. Abandoning myself to Christ who asks me to abide in him is all that is necessary for me to be happy in this life and the next.

The act of abandonment or desire to simply be does not mean that we stop moving. We are Christian, but we are still human, complete with movable arms and legs. However, we acknowledge that all that we do can never match the grace bestowed on us by Christ who makes us who we are. By our nature we are human and by grace we are Christian.

The act of abandonment to Christ is the holiest action for any Christian on this earth. A great prayer of abandonment goes:

“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my

understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own.

You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.”12

Abandoning ourselves to God simply means removing all of the costumes, masks, and façades that we have put on intentionally or unintentionally over the course of our lives. Being our true selves means ridding ourselves of the things that we are not. This includes not being merely human. We are human, but not “only” human.

A Christian who says, “I am only human” (commonly used when we have failed at something), may just as well say, “I am only God.” Both would be untrue.

If a body was capable of acting on its own apart from the soul, it would not be a human body. Likewise, a soul operating apart from the body would not be human. (We have already acknowledged that only angels are souls without bodies.)

In the same way a Christian who says, “I am only human,” denies his Christian self and thus continues to strive to be “like” God.

So, is a Christian God? Only in the sense that he has a share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity. As a soul and body make up the human

person, the human and divine make up the Christian. 

A Christian cannot have a share in the divine nature of God except through grace. Christ by his nature is divine and human. He is fully God and fully human. We are fully human by nature and by grace we are God.

Born again, we die to the old and mortal human selves and rise as Christians - human and divine.

Christians, who die here on earth will, through the grace of our divinity, rise with our body and soul. We do not cease being human when we are graced with divinity. We are fully integrated and newly created beings that rise with Christ carrying within us body, soul, and divinity.

For this reason, a Christian lives in a lie when he says, “I am only human.” Only humans, like Adam, desire to be “like” God. Christians are the new Adam, the body of Christ, Who is God.

Satan’s desire to be “like” God was really a desire to step over God or push God out of the way. A Christian, on the other hand, accepts God for who God is and accepts the unearned grace of sharing in God’s divinity.

A true Christian does not push God out of the way. Rather, such a Christian gladly accepts God, through Christ, as “the” Way, and the Truth, and the Life.

A Christian believes that Jesus Christ did not find the way to be “like” God. Jesus is the Way, because he is God.

There are thousands of philosophers, theologians, and self- helpers trying to find a way to get to heaven. On a very human level, this has been going on since the beginning of the great Fall.

In fact, there are many who would rather push God aside to make sure that they get to heaven. They demand their place in heaven, even though they have lived a life contrary to what they were created to be. It is as if some would say, “It is my right as a United States citizen (or some other citizen) to get to heaven.”

Only through the Passover of Christ are the heavens rent – like the waters of the Red Sea – and we are able to enter eternal life. We cannot do this on our own. Christ, by his nature is God. By our nature, we are not. We must abandon ourselves and accept this reality.

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NOTES:

12. St Ignatius, Suspice