THE SPIRIT OF SOLICITUDE
Thomas a Kempis tells us that since the life of man upon earth is a
temptation, "Everyone ought therefore to be anxious about his
temptations and to watch in prayer."[1]
I. _True and False Anxiety_
The anxiety to which we are exhorted is not, however, that attitude of
mind and heart which would follow upon any uncertainty, or want of
assurance, in regard to the result. The word a Kempis uses gives, in
its original significance, no such suggestion. It is _sollicitus_,
which has the force of _being wholly aroused_. That is to say, because
life on earth is a temptation, we are warned that our whole being must
be stirred in the face of such a condition.
There must not be a single faculty that is not keen and alert to enter,
at a moment's notice, upon the conflict. Every part of our nature must
be as a soldier fully armed, standing ready to {63} spring instantly
forward to the conflict at the word of command.[2]
The anxiety that engenders doubt and fear is indeed too often found
among God's people. "It is never free from imperfections and always
springs from some evil root of self-love,"[3] and is the result more of
a lack of faith than of any true, supernatural solicitude for the
safety of our souls. We can well afford to leave all these cares with
God. Says the saintly writer we have been quoting, "Greater is Thy
anxiety for me than all the care that I can take for myself; for he
stands precariously who casts not all his anxiety upon Thee."[4]
The true Christian anxiety is closely akin to the virtue of Holy Fear,
which, as we know, is one of the special gifts of the Holy Ghost. We
are anxious about our temptations and the possibilities of sin, because
we have a dread of offending a Father whose love has ever been poured
out upon us in most precious benefactions. The soul recognizing God's
goodness, and His tender, {64} fatherly love, shrinks from the baseness
and ingratitude of wounding that love. We are not afraid of God; we
are afraid of offending God because we love Him. There are few virtues
that are so immediately rooted in love as Holy Fear. Of course, we
have no reference to that servile fear which St. John tells us is cast
out by perfect love.[5] He refers to the fear of the slave who dreads
to offend because he is afraid of the lash. Holy Fear is the fear that
is aroused in the pure heart of a little child who shrinks from that
which would wound the love of a tender father. We find the true
expression of our filial anxiety in the familiar words of Faber's hymn:
"Oh, how I fear Thee, living God,
With deepest, tenderest fears,
And worship Thee with trembling hope,
And penitential tears."
II. _Worry Versus Faith_
The presence of worry is proof of absence of trust in God. The two
cannot abide in the same heart; and there is no more subtle device of
the tempter than this of arousing in us the spirit of worry concerning
our temptations. It is a temptation within a temptation, and this very
{65} complication has the effect of sadly clouding the real issue.
We have the word of the Holy Ghost that "God is faithful, who will not
suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able."[6] The word
_faithful_ as used here by St. Paul signifies faithfulness in carrying
out an agreement. It is implied that God has entered into a covenant
with the soul that He will permit no temptation beyond our strength to
assail us. The Apostle says that God is faithful and will fulfil His
part in this covenant. But the soul that admits worry is, in
substance, saying that it is not convinced of God's faithfulness in the
matter, and considers, in spite of the promise, that there is much to
fear.
Worry is the mother of an innumerable brood of sins. Well did the
Psalmist say, "Fret not thyself else shalt thou be moved to do
evil."[7] He knew somewhat of the sources of sin. His own experience,
as well as the inspiration of the Spirit, had taught him that the
fretted soul was a fair target for a hundred darts of the enemy. "The
very sound of the word anxiety is painful," says a modern writer; "next
to sin there is {66} nothing that so much troubles the mind, strains
the heart, distresses the soul, and confuses the judgment."[8] Imagine
an army troubled, strained, distressed, confused; what possible chance
would it have of victory against a powerful and confident foe? It
would be the plaything of the enemy, as indeed the human soul often is
when it allows itself to be unnerved by a false anxiety.
Thus we see that the anxious soul is the doubting soul, and the soul
that doubts God's goodness and loving care in the midst of the trial
and conflict has already flung away its weapons and prepared the terms
of its surrender to Satan. Even if our own experience did not teach us
better, His word, so often repeated, should reassure us. What can be
more comforting than the many passages concerning the divine care and
compassion with which the Scriptures teem?
We recall the final summing up of the last great blessing which Moses
gave his people from God before he went up into the mount to be seen of
them no more. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the
everlasting arms."[9] Do these words leave room for anxious doubt that
in every assault of the enemy He will be with us? Or those other words
that have brought strong {67} consolation to so many souls in the midst
of the conflict: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee"?[10]
Would that we could learn the lesson as the Psalmist learned it, that
we might rest upon the divine compassion, not enervated as we too often
are by human sympathy, but with our hearts thrilling with courage,
fearing naught, knowing that He is faithful that hath promised,[11] and
should the battle prove too strong He will save and deliver. "He shall
send down from on high to fetch me; and shall take me out of many
waters."[12]
III. _The Cure of a Doubting Spirit_
There are many practical means we can employ to allay that kind of
solicitude which is both the cause and effect of a doubting spirit.
(1) Think not overmuch of the dangers of the warfare. The imagination
brooding over them will be apt to paint them in lurid colours that will
terrify and weaken. If the thought of the peril presses upon us,
supplant it by recalling the oft repeated pledges of divine help.
Think rather of the glory of a conflict in which God is our Leader, and
in which victory is absolutely assured if only we do not lose heart but
fight on to the end.
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Recall the precious promises He has given us, and how that often in the
very language of these promises we gain a glimpse of conditions of the
war that ought mightily to encourage us. "Resist the devil and he will
flee from you,"[13] says the Spirit, comforting us concerning the peril
of the conflict. Glance for a moment at the particular words the Holy
Ghost here chooses. "Resist the devil"; or, to go back to the
etymology of the word, Stand against him; yield not one step to him
however he may fling the full weight of his power against you. But
what will be the result? Not only that your soul will be safe from
stain or guilt, but that you will carry consternation into the ranks of
hell. "He will flee from you," and the word used by the inspired
writer means not merely that he will withdraw and leave you, but that
he will make a precipitate flight, as one in a panic flees from
impending danger.[14]
Let us remember when suggestion of fear comes that this is in itself a
special temptation from Satan, and nowhere in his temptations is he
guilty of more deliberate lying. As a matter of fact there is no
danger, even in the fiercest of his assaults, to the soul that
cherishes the {69} presence of Christ within. For if He be in my
heart, then the conflict is between Him and the tempter, and so long as
my heart is His, and I do not, by wilful sin, drive Him forth, it is as
impossible for Satan to conquer as it was for him to have triumphed
over our Lord in the great conflict in the wilderness.
In short, at such times all our Lord asks is that we maintain our
hearts for Him that He may use them as battle-fields upon which to join
issue once more with the adversary that He may administer to him
another crushing defeat. True, He uses our faculties with which to
fight, but the battle is His, and if we stand not in the way His will
be the victory. There can be no real danger to the faithful soul when
the struggle is conducted under these conditions.
(2) Speak not of your anxieties to everyone. We may rightly take
counsel with some wise spiritual guide who may be able to interpret
them for us; but experience shows us that many times much speaking of
these matters gives body and reality to troubles which have no adequate
ground, and which might easily have been driven away, had we only
sought to divert the mind from them, and so to forget them, instead of
impressing them still more on the consciousness by dwelling upon them
in thought and conversation.
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Above all things let not our conversation concerning our anxieties take
the form of complaint, for in every case the complaint is against God.
He is directing the detail of the warfare, and each complaint is an
open questioning of His justice and wisdom and love. When Satan sees
that our spirits are thus inclined, how quick he is to take advantage
of it. How thick and fast do suggestions come that lead us swiftly on
to that state of self-pity at the supposed hardness of our lot, that
means a speedy extinction of divine grace within. Remember that
complaint means disloyalty, and disloyalty is a long step toward open
rebellion.
Even if our querulous spirit does not lead directly to such serious
sin, it involves us in great peril. We have already seen that Satan
has no means of knowing the effect of his assaults except by the
outward indications we give. When we openly complain of the force of
his attacks, are we not advertising him of our weak points? The
garrison that is maintaining a siege not only seeks to keep its
fortifications intact, but, should weakness transpire at any point, is
most careful not to give the enemy knowledge of it. Keep a brave front
always. This not only encourages our own heart, but discourages the
adversary.
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(3) We must also draw upon our past experience to convince ourselves
that most of our anxieties have no real basis in fact. How many hours
and days of troubled care can we recall which were proved by the issue
of the event to have had reality only in our anxious imagination.
"My sons," said an old man on his deathbed, in giving his last counsel
to his children, "I have had much trouble in this life, but most of it
never happened." This is the universal experience, and it holds good
with the solicitude that we feel over our temptations and other
spiritual trials as in the less important matters of our temporal life.
(4) It will be a help to remind ourselves very frequently that in
indulging a false anxiety concerning our spiritual difficulties, we are
seeking to-day to bear the morrow's burden, something God means no soul
to undertake. There are surely temptations enough to-day to require
all of to-day's grace and strength; and, conversely, we know that no
grace will be wanting for the trials of the present hour.
The promise is given to us as to God's people of old, "As thy days so
shall thy strength be";[15] that is, according to the need of each
particular occasion so will strength be given. There is no {72}
promise that strength will be given to-day to bear the anticipated, and
often imaginary, ills of the future; and when we allow ourselves thus
to anticipate them, we are courting sure defeat.
Satan delights to lead us into this false anxiety, for he knows we have
at the present moment no grace to grapple with temptations and trials
which do not belong to this time; and further, he knows that a faithful
confidence in God now is the _sine qua non_ to securing and storing up
strength against the future trial. If he can disturb that confidence
to-day, when the real temptation comes to-morrow we shall not have laid
hold of the grace that was offered, and so cannot but fail, unless some
extraordinary mercy of God saves us then in spite of our faithlessness.
Nor should we ever permit ourselves to forget that there may be no
to-morrow. "Remember that it is God's, not thine."[16] How sad a case
would it be (and doubtless there have been many such), if we should
weaken our souls and God's power within them, by fretting over what
might happen to-morrow; then, the call suddenly coming, find ourselves
saved indeed perhaps, but occupying a lower place in heaven forever,
because in troubling our hearts over the burdens of a to-morrow that
never came we lost the {73} grace of to-day. Every grace given us here
is transmuted into glory there. Let us not lose one of them, for the
graces proffered and accepted here are pledges of the measure of the
heavenly glory that will be ours.[17]
IV. _God's Sympathy_
But, do what we will, after all, the best and only unfailing refuge
from the snare of a false solicitude is to turn in these anxious
moments to Him with Whom alone true sympathy is found. With profit may
we hearken to the warning of the blessed a Kempis: "By mutual speech we
seek mutual comfort, and desire to ease the heart overwearied with
manifold anxieties..... But, alas, often in vain and to no end; for
this outward comfort is no small loss of inward and divine
consolation."[18]
In our solicitude we desire, and rightly desire, human sympathy, and
God means us to have it. It was for this very thing that He sent His
Son to take our nature and a human heart, full of warm love and
sympathy, that we might find in perfection that for which we
yearn,--the tender sympathy of our own kind. What sweet and {74}
strong consideration for our weakness is shown in this. Mere human
sympathy only enervates, and in the end the soul is left weaker than
before. Every man's experience has told him this, and yet deep in the
human heart there is that uncontrollable longing for the loving touch
of another heart, human like our own. God sees this, and condescends
to it. He takes humanity, full and complete, up into the Godhead, that
in Him we may find that human Heart that will give us perfectly the
comfort and sympathy for which we yearn.
So in our solicitude let us turn to Him, our Elder Brother, and the
disciple who lay on His breast at Supper will have no more loving a
welcome, no sweeter a sympathy, than that which He will give to us who
are wearied with the burden of life's warfare, and perplexed with the
problems of the battle.
[1] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[2] "When the mind ceases to entertain religious anxiety, it becomes at
the same time forgetful of the commandments, and while it thinks itself
advancing, it wanders from the smooth road, and idles on its way."--St.
Macarius, _Institutes of Christian Perfection_, Bk. I, chap. v.
[3] Scupoli, _The Spiritual Combat_, chap. xxv.
[4] _Imitation_, IV, xvii.
[5] 1 St. John iv, 18.
[6] 1 Cor. x, 13.
[7] Ps. xxxvii, 8. The R. V. reads, "Fret not thyself; it tendeth only
to evil-doing."
[8] Archbp. Ullathorne, _Christian Patience_, p. 128.
[9] Deut. xxxiii, 27.
[10] Heb. xiii, 5.
[11] Heb. xi, 11.
[12] Ps. xviii, 16.
[13] St. James iv, 7.
[14] [Greek: _pheugo_], from which our English word _fugitive_ is
derived.
[15] Deut. xxxiii, 25.
[16] Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II, p. 158.
[17] See a remarkable discourse in Dr. Pusey's _Lenten Sermons_ on "The
Losses of the Saved."
[18] _Imitation_, I, x.
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