Steps on the Path to God – Speaking about experiences!
Steps on the Path to God
We continue our talk about humility, and we address one of its qualities, namely not speaking about oneself—especially about the bright spots in oneself. Let our reflections be on speaking about personal experiences.
Speaking about experiences!
The humble person does not think much about himself, does not praise himself before people, and does not focus attention on himself, listening to the word of the Lord: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself” (Mark 8:34). Self-denial does not agree with speaking about oneself.
The humble person not only does not praise himself, but also does not accept praise from others, thinking that he has appeared before them as something he is not…
From here, I would like to discuss with you the subject of speaking about experiences, such as when a person stands to tell people about his spiritual experiences, or when one of the leaders of meetings asks him to do so, and he does it…
I observe in this matter two kinds of error:
The first error is recounting the sins of the past, with all their ugliness, without modesty…
A person stands and speaks with all boldness, without shame, and with a loud voice, saying: “I used to drink wine, go to cabarets, gamble, and befriend women…” The one who hears him feels ashamed to hear such talk, while he speaks without shame, as if these sins were something ordinary…!
Look at the tax collector who mentioned his sins before God—how he stood afar off, did not dare to lift up his eyes to heaven, beat his breast, and asked for mercy, in modesty, without recounting the details of his sins.
Let us listen to the prayer of Ezra to see this modesty in mentioning sins:
He knelt on his knees, in his torn garments, and confessed to the Lord, saying: “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads” (Ezra 9:6). Ezra spoke about the shame of faces.
Daniel also prayed: “O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face… O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against You” (Daniel 9:7–8). Truly, the humble person who feels his sins says with the psalmist: “My shame is before me all day long, and the shame of my face has covered me” (Psalm 44:15).
But for a person to stand on a pulpit and explain his abominations before everyone, without shame, on the grounds that he has changed—this is a strange matter!
The prodigal son, when he felt the misery of his condition and that he was less than the hired servants, said to his father in shame: “I have sinned against heaven and before you, and am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Luke 15:21). He did not stand to boast of the change that happened in his life, nor did he speak of the grace that filled his heart and transferred him from the far country to the father’s house.
It is also strange that those who confess the ugliness of their old life without shame also speak of the new righteousness without shame!!
“I was this and that, and I became this and that!” And the talk about the new, bright state covers the past, so that neither the speaker nor the listener feels it. Sin does not take its due of contrition.
Even more astonishing than all this is that this sinner presents himself as an example to encourage others, and in the blink of an eye turns from a sinner into a role model and into a preacher standing on the pulpit, without worthiness, preaching and serving the word!
He tries to cover all this by saying that Christ has erased his sins, forgetting that he should have been broken even more, because his sins became drops in the cup of Christ and became thorns that wounded His brow.
If your sins have been forgiven, then the price of this forgiveness should wound your heart and shame your face, because the righteous God was accounted sin because of you, as He bore your sins and laid your iniquity upon Him.
And if you have repentance, or if the Spirit has worked in you unto repentance, and the Lord has saved you from your old sins and granted you a pure life through repentance, then do not explain this new purity; let it be a secret between you and God, lest you lose it through this boasting…
Do not say, “I was a sinner and became righteous,” but say in humility: “I am still a sinner,” as the apostle Paul said: “of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15), and as the apostle James said: “For we all stumble in many things” (James 3:2).
And if someone asks you, “Have you repented? And when?” say to him: I have not yet repented. Pray for me that I may repent. Rather say: “Turn me back, O Lord, and I shall be turned” (Jeremiah 31:18).
If God has helped you to repent, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do (Matthew 6), but remember the word of the Lord: “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:6). Beware lest by speaking about yourself you have already received your reward.
Do not place yourself as an example and a teacher. There are examples in the lives of the saints, but as for you, in the time of repentance, it is fitting for you to be broken, not to teach.
Say to yourself: “Who am I that I should be an example? And what are my experiences that I should tell them to people, when I am a beginner, newly acquainted with the knowledge of God?! It is more fitting for me to learn, not to speak about experiences.”
Have you reached the level of Moses the prophet, who spent forty days with God on the mountain, and yet did not recount to us his spiritual experiences during the forty days—so will you speak?!
Have you become like the anchorites who spent tens of years with God, in solitude and contemplation, and did not recount anything about it? Even the stories of the desert fathers, the saints, we did not know from them, but from the writings of some pilgrims such as Palladius, Rufinus, and Cassian, who mentioned some of their accounts.
Which of today’s women has reached the experiences of the Virgin Mary, who lived with Christ in her bosom and in her house, and saw His miracles…
And yet the Virgin did not speak of her experiences, but was silent and kept all these things, pondering them in her heart, as the Scripture says: “But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).
It is astonishing that the Virgin is silent and does not speak of her experiences, while some woman in our days stands to tell how she obtained justification, sanctification, renewal, fullness, overflow, and all these expressions whose meanings are not even understood…
And it is astonishing that Enoch, who “walked with God” (Genesis 5:24), and Abraham, whom God brought out from his people and his homeland to live with Him on the mountain He showed him—these are silent, while some beginners in repentance speak! They are made to stand on pulpits and each one is told: “Explain to us the story of your experience!” And each one tells how he obtained the new righteousness and how grace worked in him and purified him!
If you do this while you are on the shore, what will you do if you enter the depths?! Therefore the Lord does not entrust you with His depths, lest you fill the world with talk. Rather, He entrusts the humble and the silent. What righteousness, my brother, have you obtained? You are still in a war every day, falling and rising, and your will is still under testing…
You will not receive the crown of righteousness except after you complete the race, put off the body, and the righteous Judge grants it to you on that day, as the apostle Paul explained: “Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).
Why do you tell people about your relationship with God? Let your life with God be a secret, a Holy of Holies that the ears of people do not tread upon…
Your life with God is “a garden enclosed… a spring shut up, a fountain sealed” (Song of Songs 4:12); do not make it trampled by the feet of many, lest the little foxes spoil it…
Do not proclaim yourself; do not proclaim your repentance, nor your purity; do not bring people into your relationship with God; and do not be deceived by spiritual periods that passed over you and tell people about them, lest you later seek them and not find them… Rather, according to your ability, hide your virtues.
Experiences that are sealed with silence, God proclaims in heaven; those that you proclaim on earth, the demon of vainglory snatches away, and they do not return…
If you speak about today, you do not know what tomorrow holds for you. Listen to the word of the apostle: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).
Therefore hide yourself behind humility and concealment, for they preserve you from falling.
When the apostle Paul, because enemies stirred up doubts about his apostleship that almost hindered the word, and they said that he was not an apostle but a disciple of the apostles whose mission needed their approval, Paul was compelled to speak about himself. He said: “I have become foolish in boasting; you have compelled me” (2 Corinthians 12:11). Bear with my foolishness. And he did not speak of his spiritual experiences, but of his weaknesses…
If the apostle Paul said that they compelled him to be foolish and speak about himself, why do you walk in foolishness by your own will?! Would that you remember the phrase: “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11), and also hide every divine work that raises you to Him.
He proclaims His work in you, and you do not proclaim. He makes you a light to people, but you do not say about yourself that you have become light.
The life of the saints with God was all in secrecy. Some of them even pretended foolishness and ignorance so that their virtuous life would not appear to people… Other saints, when miracles were performed through their hands, attributed them to others so that they would not appear, as in the story of the healing of Zahra, the daughter of Muhammad ‘Ali.
They came to the Pope to pray for her. He replied that he did not possess this gift, but told them to go to Anba Sarabamon Abu Tarha. When they went to him, he asked for the Pope’s cross, so that by its blessing the unclean spirit would depart from the girl. The girl was healed. Pope Peter al-Gawli attributed her healing to the prayer of Anba Sarabamon, and Anba Sarabamon said it was the blessing of the Pope’s cross…
Likewise, when Saint Bessarion prayed for the healing of a sick person, he would say: “By the prayer of my father, Saint Anba Antony.” He would say to the unclean spirit: “My father, Saint Antony, commands you to come out,” and he attributed the matter to another…
These were people whose miracles spoke, and they fled from them—unlike those who speak about their experiences. Therefore I was greatly astonished when one of them interpreted the saying of the Lord Jesus to His disciples: “And you shall be witnesses to Me” (Acts 1:8). Instead of saying that the meaning of the verse is that we bear witness to Christ in His death for us, His redemption of humanity, and His resurrection that broke the sting of death, he said: “We should bear witness to God’s work in us, and how He changed us!” That is, that a person speaks about his experiences of change! Forgetting the word of the Lord: “You proclaim My death and confess My resurrection.” Thus was the testimony of the apostles…
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