Part 4, Chapter 15
Imagine a baby beginning to crawl for the first time. They are going to have struggles that we wouldn’t have. Now imagine a baby beginning to walk for the first time, they might fall, cry and not want to continue and yet they do. For us as adults, crawling and walking don’t have the same struggles that we had when we first began to do these things. They have become much, much easier and we don’t have to think about them. We just do them.
Beginners, intermediates and experts all have to start as beginners. We are not experts overnight. We all have to begin at something and try it for a while before we can become proficient in it. The problems and struggles we had in the beginning are not the same as we have now. But sometimes the problems we have in the beginning can weigh us down. “It is common to most beginners in God’s service, being as yet inexperienced in the fluctuations of grace and in spiritual changes, that when they lose the glow of sensible devotion, and the first fascinating lights that led them in their first steps towards God, they lose heart, and fall into depression and discouragement” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 185). We can in the beginning of the devout life have a desire to have spiritual consolation all the time and think that if we are not experiencing it, that we have done something wrong. This can weigh us down and keep us from going forward in the life of faith. Sometimes we just want to be expert runners, when we are just beginning to crawl and walk in the faith life.
God doesn’t want us to look at Him as our personal want fulfiller; rather He wants us to know Him as LOVE. God is going to help us grow into a more mature love of Him. “That God is accustomed to give some foretaste of his heavenly joys to beginners in his service, the better to wean them from earthly pleasures, and to encourage them in seeking his divine love, even as a mother attracts her babe to suck by means of honey” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 186). These spiritual consolations are given to move us forward in living the life that God has called us too. But the spiritual consolations don’t always remain. Trials will come in living the devout life. “We must never grow discouraged amid our inward trials” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 186). All we have to do is look at what Jesus’ life was like and His Apostles. They didn’t have it easy, but they trusted in God. They kept trying to love God more and more. Not only trials, but serious temptations happen to those trying to grow in the devout life. Both trails and temptations are allowed for by God so that we grow mature. God wants and desires for us to love like Him.
We start as beginners, but we hope to be experts. Patience and continued effort are needed to love like God does. When trials, spiritual desolation, and temptations come, go to God and to His experts. “It is a sovereign remedy to open our grief to some spiritual friend able to assist us” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 186). We are not alone in this race, we need to keep running, but run with those who know how to live in the devout life.