The Spiritual Struggle.

        In the tradition of Orthodox spirituality one meets recurrent themes about repentance, decision, firm resolve, vigilance, obedience, and inner spiritual warfare. These themes are not new but derive from the Bible. Jesus and John the Baptist radically called their hearers to repentance. Saint Paul frequently exhorted Christians to be sober, vigilant, and to put on the whole armor of God, always ready to wage spiritual battle. Jesus also said that it takes keen and daring persons to take hold of God's Kingdom.

        For all the apostles and saints grace is a gift; it is something to be received rather than to be earned. Salvation is primarily the work of God, not of human achievement. Nevertheless each Christian participates in the mystery of salvation through a personal response of his total being, beginning with a fundamental decision to turn from oneself and the world to God as the center and source of life. This is nothing less than a conversion to God and taking up battle against sin and evil. The Lord battled unceasingly with evil and lived in complete obedience to His Father. So also each Christian is called to wage ceaseless spiritual warfare against evil and sin in complete obedience to God. A human being cannot save himself. God alone saves. But to receive God's blessings and gifts, the Christian must respond to God with all of his inner and outer resources. God both demands and deserves a Christian's best in total surrender to Him.

        Staretz Silouan was an accomplished warrior of Christ. He knew that spiritual warfare is at once simple and complex, easy and difficult. It is complex and difficult because of the cunning of the human heart. A human being does not easily abandon self-love nor quickly surrender the ego to God. The battle is simple and easy because of the grace of God. Writes Silouan:

Fierce is the war we wage; yet it is a wise and simple one. If the soul grows to love humility, then all the snares of our enemies are overturned and his fortresses taken.... The war is a stubborn war, but only for the proud: the humble find it easy because they love the Lord and He gives them the powerful armament of the grace of the Holy Spirit.^[115]

The spiritual struggle begins with repentance, metanoia, a “change of mind.” Repentance is a thorough conversion of the mind and heart to God. It is a profound yes to God which leads to the formation of new attitudes, new priorities and new values. A person cannot even begin spiritual warfare without this fundamental turning to God to receive His help. Without the Holy Spirit, declares Silouan, the soul is incapable even of starting out upon the race. The soul neither knows nor understands who and where her enemies are. Without God's unfailing guidance, the soul stumbles and falls at every turn. Therefore, the whole basis of spiritual warfare is to place God at the center of life. Victory depends on complete reliance on God. But surrender and obedience to God do not at all imply passivity. What is surrendered is not action but self‑will, not creative thought but selfish drives. The Christian can be highly active. In fact divine grace energizes and releases the believers inner gifts in a most amazing manner. But a Christian's activity is always God‑centered and love‑centered. According to Orthodox saints, “passivity” is a state of being controlled by inner moods, drives and passions which the inner self obeys like a slave, whether or not a person is externally “active.” True activity is prayer, a dynamic spiritual condition of being in conscious communion with God and freely choosing the good through cooperation with divine grace.

        Because of pride which leads man to self‑reliance, it is usually by affliction that a human being recognizes his insufficiency and turns to God. The Lord dearly loves man, teaches Silouan, but He allows affliction so that man may perceive his weakness, his need of God, and entrust himself to his Creator. When a Christian exalts himself or subtly lapses into self‑reliance, God withdraws from him and delivers him to suffering. Suffering is not only outward, such as some illness or physical hardship, which are unavoidable in life. But suffering is above all inward, the agonies and lacerations of the soul. Without God, the soul experiences distress, fear and conflict, or dejection, emptiness and unfulfillment. It often finds itself in darkness, tormented by fantasies, and beset by frustrations and evil thoughts. Silouan notes that the soul continues to suffer until it humbles itself and turns to the Lord in repentance. It is a short step to the light of God. After repentance, the simplest path to spiritual life is described as follows by the Saint:

Be obedient and sober, do not find fault, and keep mind and heart from evil

thoughts (through prayer). Remember that all men are good and beloved of the

Lord. For such humility the grace of the Holy Spirit will dwell in you, and cause

you to exclaim, “How merciful is the Lord!” But if you find fault and are rebellious,

if you want your own way, your soul will fail and you will cry: “The Lord has forgotten

me!” But it is not the Lord Who has forgotten you: it is you who have forgotten that

you must humble yourself, and so the grace of God abides not in your soul.^[116]

Spiritual warfare is primarily a matter of the mind and heart. Jesus said that all thoughts proceed from the heart, the inner world of the human being. The crucial battleground is mostly unseen. The Orthodox saints called the spiritual struggle “invisible warfare” (aoratos polemos). What is at stake is control of the inner thought world by grace or by other forces. Saint Paul spoke of having the mind of Christ. This exactly is the goal of spiritual life: to acquire the mind of Christ. The inner man can allow grace to control and transfigure all thinking, decisions and commitments. On the negative side, the inner person must alertly reject all evil thoughts and in no way obey sinful promptings. Silouan counsels his readers to cut off sin at the root by rejecting evil thoughts immediately through prayer. Should an evil thought arise in the mind, or an evil inclination disturb the heart, let the Christian quickly turn to Christ through inner prayer, such as the Jesus Prayer, which being brief and powerful, is most effective in invisible warfare.

        If one becomes forgetful, fails to chase away evil thoughts, and assents to them, he must at once repent to God. Otherwise the force of evil will grow in him and soon will express itself through actions and then habits. It is easier to uproot a blade of grass than a tree, another Orthodox saint once remarked. Not only evil thoughts, but also day-dreaming, empty fantasies, and irrelevant thoughts often intrude, preoccupy the mind, confuse it, and subtly de­ceive it into evil. The outcome is the mind's separation from God which brings spiritual darkness. Another Orthodox saint called the mind “a wagon full of monkeys.” There can be no inner relief from evil thoughts, no freedom from inner disturbance, without frequent prayer and vigilant resolve to fol­low the guidance of the Holy Spirit. According to Silouan, a Christian cannot fulfill the Lord's commandment to love God with all of his mind, heart and soul until useless thoughts are replaced by heavenly ones and the Christian is inwardly trans­ formed through the renewal of his mind.

        So the battle rages on and will not cease until death. Condemn your brother and you lose peace. Be boastful and grace leaves you. Tarry with evil thoughts and you lose confidence in prayer. Be fond of glory, power or material gains and you lose experience of God's love. Follow your own will and you are conquered by the enemy. Hate your brother, judge him, and you fall away from God into the control of an evil spirit. Therefore, “be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour” (1 Pt. 5:8). Let not an hour pass without repentance, exhorts the Saint. Do not lose the peace of the Holy Spirit over trifles. Surrender to the Lord so that He may guide you with His mighty hand. Guard the grace of God for without it, a human being is but sinful clay. As a person nourishes himself with food, so also he should sustain himself through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit the soul is spiritually dead. Love your enemies, pray for those who insult or injure you, and offer thanks to God for all things. This is the narrow and hard way of the Christian struggle to spiritual victory by God's grace.