More About the Importance of Working While Completely Relying on God
We're continuing our special series of posts to help us work through this
Holy Season of Lent. Each will incorporate the advice provided by Father de
Caussade in Abandonment to Divine Providence, specifically
referencing passages from the "Letters on the Practice of Abandonment to
Divine Providence" that are typically included in editions of his
spiritual writing.
Last time we discussed the right way to work while completely relying on God. We learned how to combine our own effort with Father's idea of complete Abandonment to Divine Providence. And we saw the reward of working hard while totally relying on God.
But the benefits we derive from totally relying on God in our work aren't the primary reasons we should do so. If they were, we'd really be working for ourselves rather then the greater glory of God. So Father de Caussade sets us straight in Letter VIII - Our Dependence on God. He gives us two good reasons:
"1st. Because the greatness of God and His sovereign dominion over all, require that all creatures should bow before Him, that all should be cast down, and as it were annihilated before His supreme Majesty"
I find this a great tonic in an age that levels everything, placing one and all on the same plane, including God. Bad enough that we insist that men and women are the same. But God, God the same as us?
Gents, God isn't one of the boys.
"There is no comparison between His infinite greatness and our nothingness...Things, compared with nothingness, seem to have an existence, but, compared with God, they seem nothing; they only possess being and substance by the gift of God..."
Many of us are more deferential to our bosses at work than we are to God. Is that reasonable?
"(God) has a right to expect from His reasonable creatures a glory far more worthy of Him..."
When we relay totally on God we practice, as Father never tires of calling it, "Abandonment,"
"...what more just and noble use could any reasonable creature make of its liberty than in rendering to God all it has received from Him, and in offering Him in advance all that may be added to it in the future?"
We're reminded here that God has given us everything, including free will. We are free to make use of what He has given us in any way we choose. When we work for the greater glory and honor of God, we are freely giving Him His due. And even as our fallen human nature causes us to fall into selfish thoughts and actions at times, God is there to rescue us by His grace:
"...the homage that God expects from us he alone can give us power to render Him in giving us the thought, the desire, and the will."
The second reason to totally rely on God, which includes abandoning ourselves to His Divine Providence in our daily work, serves the first:
"...unless God receives from His creatures the homage due to His infinite majesty He cannot give free vent to His infinite goodness."
Here we're reminded that we must cooperate with the graces God gives us. And abandonment will serve as our best way to cooperate with God's grace:
"All that His creatures bring to Him by a total renunciation He wills to return to them by a gratuitous gift of His mercy; or rather, He repays infinitely more than they have given Him, because in return for the gift of their limited being He bestows on them His infinite riches. Therefore at the bottom of this abyss of renunciation where we should expect to find nothingness we find infinitude. What an exchange of the divine liberality! What ingenuity of divine wisdom! What a contrivance and surprise of the divine goodness!"
God is great! God is Good!
Last time we discussed the right way to work while completely relying on God. We learned how to combine our own effort with Father's idea of complete Abandonment to Divine Providence. And we saw the reward of working hard while totally relying on God.
But the benefits we derive from totally relying on God in our work aren't the primary reasons we should do so. If they were, we'd really be working for ourselves rather then the greater glory of God. So Father de Caussade sets us straight in Letter VIII - Our Dependence on God. He gives us two good reasons:
"1st. Because the greatness of God and His sovereign dominion over all, require that all creatures should bow before Him, that all should be cast down, and as it were annihilated before His supreme Majesty"
I find this a great tonic in an age that levels everything, placing one and all on the same plane, including God. Bad enough that we insist that men and women are the same. But God, God the same as us?
Gents, God isn't one of the boys.
"There is no comparison between His infinite greatness and our nothingness...Things, compared with nothingness, seem to have an existence, but, compared with God, they seem nothing; they only possess being and substance by the gift of God..."
Many of us are more deferential to our bosses at work than we are to God. Is that reasonable?
"(God) has a right to expect from His reasonable creatures a glory far more worthy of Him..."
When we relay totally on God we practice, as Father never tires of calling it, "Abandonment,"
"...what more just and noble use could any reasonable creature make of its liberty than in rendering to God all it has received from Him, and in offering Him in advance all that may be added to it in the future?"
We're reminded here that God has given us everything, including free will. We are free to make use of what He has given us in any way we choose. When we work for the greater glory and honor of God, we are freely giving Him His due. And even as our fallen human nature causes us to fall into selfish thoughts and actions at times, God is there to rescue us by His grace:
"...the homage that God expects from us he alone can give us power to render Him in giving us the thought, the desire, and the will."
The second reason to totally rely on God, which includes abandoning ourselves to His Divine Providence in our daily work, serves the first:
"...unless God receives from His creatures the homage due to His infinite majesty He cannot give free vent to His infinite goodness."
Here we're reminded that we must cooperate with the graces God gives us. And abandonment will serve as our best way to cooperate with God's grace:
"All that His creatures bring to Him by a total renunciation He wills to return to them by a gratuitous gift of His mercy; or rather, He repays infinitely more than they have given Him, because in return for the gift of their limited being He bestows on them His infinite riches. Therefore at the bottom of this abyss of renunciation where we should expect to find nothingness we find infinitude. What an exchange of the divine liberality! What ingenuity of divine wisdom! What a contrivance and surprise of the divine goodness!"
God is great! God is Good!
We adore Thee O Christ, and we bless Thee,
Because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.
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