The Keeping of the Law is Wanting Nothing outside the Now God is Giving us
COMMENT: Why should we meditate on God's Law day and night? (Ps 1:2) And how do we violate that?
We keep the Law when we love God even when we get "stones."(Mt 4:4) When you don't keep the Law you are saying, there must be something wrong; I can't eat these stones. At another time you have nice feelings and think you're very close to God and you say, this is it! Then when God takes away that image and those fine feelings, you say, what's the matter? What's the matter is that you're not living by "every word that comes out of the mouth of the Father."(Mt. 4:4)
We want bread instead of stones and the "bread" could be seeing yourself as being good. At times God wants you to see yourself as good; but then you abuse that and say, this is it! Every time you do that, you're making a kind of god out of your understanding and your fine feelings. You could say you do love God more than anything else, but as soon as you say you want something which is other than what God gives you, what happens to your judgment?
God is that for the sake of which you do everything else. He is your end and measure. Do you really believe that when you say, I want this; I don’t want this or that? When you murmur that way, you’re saying, in effect, this is what I need; God doesn't know what I need; I know what I need.
What do you think is the meaning of the Jews crossing the Red Sea and then starting to complain? How does that relate to God's Law? After the stupendous miracle did they really believe that God was taking care of them? They said they knew what they needed: food, the fleshpots of Egypt. (Ex 16:3)
The right state is a state in which you’re sensitive to the actuality of now: that God is loving you now in what He is giving you. As soon as you lose that spirit, you can talk about God and about keeping the Law, but you’re not keeping it; as Martha wasn't keeping it, though Mary was. Do you see the connection between what I'm saying and the words, "I to my beloved"?(Cant. 2:16; 6:2) You can be sure that was what Mary was thinking and doing. So the keeping of the Law is being receptive to what God wants, letting yourself be kissed by God the way He wants to kiss you, and the kiss is now! When you have that disposition, you're keeping the Law and you have no false gods because all you desire is God. You "feed among the lilies”(ibid) and the lilies don't toil or spin.(Mt 6:28 Lk 12:27) What do they give God? They just receive and flower.
We begin to violate the Law when we want to do something which comes from us. So there isn't very much difference between a Pharisee who wants to take delight in his understanding and a playboy who wants to take delight in his flesh. It is significant that the ones who crucified Christ were the Pharisees, the ones who thought they understood the Law. Consider what you do when you become aware of your sinfulness. If you don't meditate on God's Law night and day, that is, when things are good and when they are bad, as soon as you do something wrong, you want to fix it up: you want to give God His due; you want to give Him something you haven't received. So if you want to get your peace that way, what can God does except let you fall harder?
Keeping the law is order, and peace is the tranquility of order. When you lose your peace, you destroy that order because you make something other than God the end. When you make something sinful the end, like the pleasures of the flesh, it is relatively easy to see that you're not pleasing God. It is significant that Christ wasn't crucified by sinners; he was crucified by the "pious".
Since meditating on the Law brings peace, when you lose your peace that is a sign you want something outside of God. It is important to cultivate that continuity of peace. For example, if you want money for something and you don't have it, you could lose your peace; also, if you want virtue or a relationship with someone, etc. All through the day there are things you want outside of God, and you lose your peace because you're not keeping His first commandment: "I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before Me."(Ex 20:2f)
So you have to meditate on God's Law night and day as an antidote to your fallen nature's inclination to want things outside of him. And now that you understand that everything comes from God, don't rest in your understanding; give yourself to God. What happens is what God is giving you, but the essential thing in each moment is to give yourself. We're all congenital idolaters. Above all, don't make your understanding the end. This is the meaning of "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."(Jn 1:5) So if you want the light of God don't cultivate the darkness of your understanding.
COMMENT: In the image you used before, what would stones mean?
Stones are an image of something uncongenial to our nature. Satan would say we should always have things congenial to us. But Jesus being the Son of God wanted only what God wanted: "every word that comes out of the mouth of the Father” (Mt 4:4) that is, each thing that happens. The same thing would apply to our understanding. Understanding is like bread: when you can understand something, by the very fact that you can comprehend it, it can't be God. So you should turn away from your own understanding and unite yourself with God. An intellectual could think he was pleasing God by his understanding, but the only thing that pleases God is what comes from Him: "Blessed are the poor in spirit."(Mt 5:4)
The light that we have is our light as an instrument. It would be perverse to make an end out of this light, so you turn away from the light and recognize that anything we understand, by the very fact that we can comprehend it can't be God, so we resolve the matter by turning to God.
In the words "I to my beloved and my beloved to me”(Cant 2:16; 6:2) it is just the beloved giving Himself to you and you giving yourself to Him.
When you want to turn away from your own thoughts and you see how they keep coming, you realize that the most important of all disciplines is the turning away from all those thoughts. When you do that and cultivate the darkness, you're really adoring God, not your own thoughts. "Unless you hate your soul you’ll lose it."(Jn 12:25; Mt 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24) You know your soul wants to destroy you and you hate it. Ask yourself if you hate your own soul. If you don't
hate it you’ll lose it, because you’ll follow all those anxious and perverse thoughts.
One of the most hateful things to God, if not the most hateful of all, is wide-eyed innocence. "Who wants to kill you?" the Pharisees said to Jesus, "Now we know you have a devil."(Jn 7:20; 8:52) And the next day they killed Him. Apply that to yourself: you want to kill Jesus with all these thoughts, and you say, who wants to kill Him, what's wrong with thinking this thought? This is the most effective hypocrisy of all, this wallowing in your own thoughts all day long and then saying, what wrong did I do? You should only want to understand things in order to keep the law and to stay united with God in the darkness, because the will works through thoughts and you can't want something without thinking about it. But if you take delight in your understanding apart from that, it is a sin. There is a special place in hell for philosophers who have made an idol out of their own understanding.
Aristotle began his metaphysics: "All men by nature desire to know." The Christian commentary on this should be: "All men by their fallen nature desire to know too much!"
St. Paul said, “I use the things of this world as though I used them not."(1 Cor 7:31) Even though I use the things of this world, because it is my mind that is the human principle of my actions, still I use them as an instrument of God. You should cultivate that sense of your instrumentality with respect to God, even as you exercise your principality as a creature. But you can only get that by being in contact with God. Your thoughts and desires are what destroy your peace. If you understand what we're saying, you must realize how vicious you are, how you rest in your thoughts all day long. Then you have the foundation for hating those thoughts because the soul that generates them is your own enemy.
And remember the Virgin Mary who, meditating on God's Law day and night (Ps 1:2) knew that all the good in her came from God, "because He who is mighty has done great things to me."(Lk 1:49)
We keep the Law when we love God even when we get "stones."(Mt 4:4) When you don't keep the Law you are saying, there must be something wrong; I can't eat these stones. At another time you have nice feelings and think you're very close to God and you say, this is it! Then when God takes away that image and those fine feelings, you say, what's the matter? What's the matter is that you're not living by "every word that comes out of the mouth of the Father."(Mt. 4:4)
We want bread instead of stones and the "bread" could be seeing yourself as being good. At times God wants you to see yourself as good; but then you abuse that and say, this is it! Every time you do that, you're making a kind of god out of your understanding and your fine feelings. You could say you do love God more than anything else, but as soon as you say you want something which is other than what God gives you, what happens to your judgment?
God is that for the sake of which you do everything else. He is your end and measure. Do you really believe that when you say, I want this; I don’t want this or that? When you murmur that way, you’re saying, in effect, this is what I need; God doesn't know what I need; I know what I need.
What do you think is the meaning of the Jews crossing the Red Sea and then starting to complain? How does that relate to God's Law? After the stupendous miracle did they really believe that God was taking care of them? They said they knew what they needed: food, the fleshpots of Egypt. (Ex 16:3)
The right state is a state in which you’re sensitive to the actuality of now: that God is loving you now in what He is giving you. As soon as you lose that spirit, you can talk about God and about keeping the Law, but you’re not keeping it; as Martha wasn't keeping it, though Mary was. Do you see the connection between what I'm saying and the words, "I to my beloved"?(Cant. 2:16; 6:2) You can be sure that was what Mary was thinking and doing. So the keeping of the Law is being receptive to what God wants, letting yourself be kissed by God the way He wants to kiss you, and the kiss is now! When you have that disposition, you're keeping the Law and you have no false gods because all you desire is God. You "feed among the lilies”(ibid) and the lilies don't toil or spin.(Mt 6:28 Lk 12:27) What do they give God? They just receive and flower.
We begin to violate the Law when we want to do something which comes from us. So there isn't very much difference between a Pharisee who wants to take delight in his understanding and a playboy who wants to take delight in his flesh. It is significant that the ones who crucified Christ were the Pharisees, the ones who thought they understood the Law. Consider what you do when you become aware of your sinfulness. If you don't meditate on God's Law night and day, that is, when things are good and when they are bad, as soon as you do something wrong, you want to fix it up: you want to give God His due; you want to give Him something you haven't received. So if you want to get your peace that way, what can God does except let you fall harder?
Keeping the law is order, and peace is the tranquility of order. When you lose your peace, you destroy that order because you make something other than God the end. When you make something sinful the end, like the pleasures of the flesh, it is relatively easy to see that you're not pleasing God. It is significant that Christ wasn't crucified by sinners; he was crucified by the "pious".
Since meditating on the Law brings peace, when you lose your peace that is a sign you want something outside of God. It is important to cultivate that continuity of peace. For example, if you want money for something and you don't have it, you could lose your peace; also, if you want virtue or a relationship with someone, etc. All through the day there are things you want outside of God, and you lose your peace because you're not keeping His first commandment: "I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before Me."(Ex 20:2f)
So you have to meditate on God's Law night and day as an antidote to your fallen nature's inclination to want things outside of him. And now that you understand that everything comes from God, don't rest in your understanding; give yourself to God. What happens is what God is giving you, but the essential thing in each moment is to give yourself. We're all congenital idolaters. Above all, don't make your understanding the end. This is the meaning of "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."(Jn 1:5) So if you want the light of God don't cultivate the darkness of your understanding.
COMMENT: In the image you used before, what would stones mean?
Stones are an image of something uncongenial to our nature. Satan would say we should always have things congenial to us. But Jesus being the Son of God wanted only what God wanted: "every word that comes out of the mouth of the Father” (Mt 4:4) that is, each thing that happens. The same thing would apply to our understanding. Understanding is like bread: when you can understand something, by the very fact that you can comprehend it, it can't be God. So you should turn away from your own understanding and unite yourself with God. An intellectual could think he was pleasing God by his understanding, but the only thing that pleases God is what comes from Him: "Blessed are the poor in spirit."(Mt 5:4)
The light that we have is our light as an instrument. It would be perverse to make an end out of this light, so you turn away from the light and recognize that anything we understand, by the very fact that we can comprehend it can't be God, so we resolve the matter by turning to God.
In the words "I to my beloved and my beloved to me”(Cant 2:16; 6:2) it is just the beloved giving Himself to you and you giving yourself to Him.
When you want to turn away from your own thoughts and you see how they keep coming, you realize that the most important of all disciplines is the turning away from all those thoughts. When you do that and cultivate the darkness, you're really adoring God, not your own thoughts. "Unless you hate your soul you’ll lose it."(Jn 12:25; Mt 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24) You know your soul wants to destroy you and you hate it. Ask yourself if you hate your own soul. If you don't
hate it you’ll lose it, because you’ll follow all those anxious and perverse thoughts.
One of the most hateful things to God, if not the most hateful of all, is wide-eyed innocence. "Who wants to kill you?" the Pharisees said to Jesus, "Now we know you have a devil."(Jn 7:20; 8:52) And the next day they killed Him. Apply that to yourself: you want to kill Jesus with all these thoughts, and you say, who wants to kill Him, what's wrong with thinking this thought? This is the most effective hypocrisy of all, this wallowing in your own thoughts all day long and then saying, what wrong did I do? You should only want to understand things in order to keep the law and to stay united with God in the darkness, because the will works through thoughts and you can't want something without thinking about it. But if you take delight in your understanding apart from that, it is a sin. There is a special place in hell for philosophers who have made an idol out of their own understanding.
Aristotle began his metaphysics: "All men by nature desire to know." The Christian commentary on this should be: "All men by their fallen nature desire to know too much!"
St. Paul said, “I use the things of this world as though I used them not."(1 Cor 7:31) Even though I use the things of this world, because it is my mind that is the human principle of my actions, still I use them as an instrument of God. You should cultivate that sense of your instrumentality with respect to God, even as you exercise your principality as a creature. But you can only get that by being in contact with God. Your thoughts and desires are what destroy your peace. If you understand what we're saying, you must realize how vicious you are, how you rest in your thoughts all day long. Then you have the foundation for hating those thoughts because the soul that generates them is your own enemy.
And remember the Virgin Mary who, meditating on God's Law day and night (Ps 1:2) knew that all the good in her came from God, "because He who is mighty has done great things to me."(Lk 1:49)