Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [99]
The chief reason lies in our habit of submitting to the sovereignty of a self-evident purpose like that of avoiding an obvious evil, which causes us to omit confronting that evil, taken in its actual content, with God.
We no longer consider the question as to what, after all, it would mean to us if we had to endure that calamity, but formally erect its avoidance into an unequivocal and autonomous aim, to the pursuit of which we then completely subordinate ourselves. Thus, the evil in question acquires an enhanced significance which is out of proportion with its real import.
Mostly, it is a significance that exaggerates the real weight of the matter even in the natural context; always so if the object is viewed in a supernatural light. Anxieties of this kind not seldom afflict us with far heavier distress than would the thing we fear itself, were it really to happen.
We overcome fear by confronting evils with God
From this charmed circle one can only escape by concentrating oneself on God, and confronting the evil one apprehends with God; by contemplating it in the light of our eternal destiny, and repeating the words the Lord spoke: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will but as Thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39).
To be sure, let us then use all means that reason can provide to avert the threat; but the scope we accord this preoccupation in our minds must be kept in proportion with the true import of that evil. We must never simply deliver ourselves over to the autonomous mechanism of the campaign we wage for averting it. Again and again, in the course of varying situations as our action of defense develops, we must confront the evil in view with God, and renew the act of surrendering ourselves to the holy will of God. Thus only can we avoid being completely dominated by our anxiety and preserve our inner freedom.
In the presence of great tasks, again, to which we feel called by God, we should not rely on a sense of natural security but draw strength and courage from our confidence in God. If we possess all natural equipment needed for these tasks, we should in humility remember the truth that it is to God we owe our natural endowments and that without His help we may fail in spite of all our natural talents.
Moreover, any blessing that may derive from our work either for ourselves or for others depends exclusively on the help of God. And again, if we do not feel equal by nature to the tasks proposed to us, we should by no means lose heart but pray, as we should in the contrary case, too: “O God, come to my assistance, O Lord, make haste to help me” (Ps. 69:2). To God’s arms we should repair, and say with the Psalmist, “Through my God I shall climb over a wall” (Ps. 17:30).
Even in inner darkness, we must trust God
The supreme test, however, of our confidence in God lies, perhaps, in those moments of complete inner darkness in which we feel as though we are forsaken by God. Our heart feels blunt; our prayers for strength and inspiration sound hollow; they seem plainly to be of no avail; wherever we look, our glance perceives but our impotence and, as it were, an impenetrable wall separating us from God. We doubt our being called; we appear to ourselves rejected and abandoned by God. It is in such moments, when we are most tempted to part with our confidence in God, that we need it most. An ardent belief in His love; a steadfast conviction that He is near to us even though we are, or imagine ourselves to be, far away from Him; an unbroken awareness that “He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10)—these must carry us across the chasms of darkness and lend us strength to blindly let ourselves fall into His arms.
Our confidence in God must be independent of whether we experience His nearness, whether we sense the enlivening touch of grace, whether we feel ourselves being borne on the wings of His love. Has not God too