Struggle with God
On the occasion of the Great Lent, we would like to speak about reconciliation with God. In this regard, the Apostle Paul says: “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20).
How does this reconciliation take place? What is your role in it? And what is God’s role? You must exert every effort, and also…
Struggle with God¹
God Wants to Be Reconciled with You
God Himself wants to be reconciled with you.
He desires this reconciliation, seeks it, and searches for it with all His power, with all His grace, and through the work of His Holy Spirit. At the very least, from your side, you ought to respond…
God reproaches man, saying: “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isa 1:18). He also says: “Return to Me, and I will return to you” (Mal 3:7). Indeed, He stands at the door and knocks, waiting for someone to open to Him. And He says: “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). Moreover, God says in His reproach to man: “All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people” (Rom 10:21).
Imagine that God stretches out His hand to you all day long, all your life, wanting to be reconciled with you, wanting to wash you so that you become whiter than snow, wanting to dwell in your heart and that you dwell in His heart, and to establish with you a covenant and a relationship…
The Owner of heaven and earth, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Almighty who possesses all perfections, the Holy One whose holiness has no limits, says: “My delight is with the sons of men” (Prov 8:31). He looks at your heart and says: “This is My resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it” (Ps 132). The Spirit addresses your soul, saying: “Listen, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; forget your own people also, and your father’s house; so the King will greatly desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, worship Him” (Ps 45:10–11).
For the sake of this reconciliation, God sent prophets, apostles, shepherds, priests, teachers, and preachers, all calling out together: “Be reconciled to God”… And for the sake of this reconciliation, He sends His grace and His Holy Spirit.
He wants to reconcile you in order to restore you, by any condition and by any means… There is no objection to sending you trials, tribulations, and illnesses, if these return you to Him.
And He does all this for your sake, so that you may not perish…
He wants your salvation. “Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). “He desires not the death of the sinner, but that he should turn and live” (Ezek 18:23). He establishes joy in heaven if you are able to reach repentance.
He is keen over you, and He knows that if you depart from Him you will be lost. Therefore, He draws you near to Himself so that you may not perish…
He knows that if you depart from Him, you will lose your ideals, lose your divine image, return to dust and become an earthly creature as you once were, and be lost… You become a person alien to the Kingdom, lose the wedding garment, lose your holiness, purity, and faith… Therefore God, out of the abundance of His love, is keen over you—even the Holy Bible, God inspired it for your sake… It tells the story of God with humanity, the story of their fall and their salvation.
The Holy Bible is not the story of God with the angels, nor His story with nature, but it is the story of God with people…
The heavenly Jerusalem, the place of the eternal Kingdom, the Scripture calls it “the dwelling place of God with men” (Rev 21:3). It is a divine concern for you, and an opportunity for reconciliation, suited to the holy period of the Great Lent. So what prevents you?
Obstacles That Hinder Reconciliation
Sometimes the reason is heedlessness. A person does not sense the state he is in, nor realize the change he has reached. He does not think about God; he is occupied with other things.
The subject of reconciliation never comes to his mind, because his relationship with God is not a matter of his thought or concern. He does not feel God’s existence at all, so that he may reconcile with Him!
Therefore, in order to be reconciled with God, give yourself an opportunity to think about God. Try to let the name of God be repeated in your thoughts, on your tongue, echoed in your emotions, occupying you for some time… Escape, even briefly, from your preoccupations in order to think about God.
And trust that if you think about God, you will think about reconciliation with Him…
Preoccupations often lead a person astray from God and from himself. Therefore, the Scripture says about fasting: “Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly.” For seclusion gives a person an opportunity to think about God. So seclude yourself according to your abilities—but let your seclusion be spiritual.
Perhaps among the obstacles that hinder reconciliation with God is the love of the world or the love of sin. A person says: I want to be reconciled with God, but I cannot…
He sees that as long as this sin remains before him, he will not be reconciled with God. And this places God in one scale and sin in another scale—and the scale of sin outweighs.
As though he is saying to God: If You, O Lord, would agree that I love You and keep this sin, that would be the best solution!!
My advice to you in this case is to struggle with God so that He may deliver you from this sin…
Struggle with God
Say to Him: I want, O Lord, to live with You, so deliver me from this obstacle. Save me from it; give me strength.
Pour yourself out before God. Even if you love the sin from the depths of your heart, from those same depths ask the Lord to save you from it.
Be honest with the Lord. Say to Him: I want, O Lord, to leave this sin, but I love it. I want to get rid of it, but my heart is completely occupied with it.
My heart loves it. But You, O Lord, are able to change the heart.
You are able to make me hate this sin that I love.
Pour yourself out before God and take from Him power over sin.
Say to Him: O Lord, You have saved saints whose earlier lives were perhaps much worse than my condition. You saved Moses the Black, Augustine, Mary the Copt, and Arianus the Governor of Ansena. Save me also like them.
Consider me among the complicated cases that Your divine wisdom has treated.
“I am an existing problem before Your all-powerful divinity. Make me material for the work of Your Holy Spirit.” Struggle in this way before God, so that He may save you from the love of sin. And a piece of advice I say to you, O blessed son, on the path of your repentance:
You will not be able to overcome sin by your human effort alone.
The Scripture says about sin that it: “has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men” (Prov 7:26). If all her slain were strong men, then nothing avails against her except God… Remember that Joshua with all his army could not overcome Amalek without the raised arms of Moses toward God… Therefore struggle with God and say to Him: If I, O Lord, do not possess power, with You is all power.
If I do not want life with You, it is enough that You want life with me. If I am not serious about the salvation of my soul, then You are very serious about saving this soul.
If the salvation of my soul is not within the power of my will, then surely it is within the power of Your grace… If my struggle cannot prevail, perhaps my prayer can.
O blessed son who struggles for the salvation of your soul:
Be continually a friend of the Holy Spirit, a partner of the Holy Spirit. Always involve the Spirit with you in your life and in your struggle. The Scripture teaches us that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, and that we are not the ones speaking, but the Spirit of God; and that we are not the ones praying, but the Spirit intercedes in us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
The spiritual life is not self-reliance, nor victory by a human arm, but a partnership with the Holy Spirit.
Our great problem, O beloved, is that we rely on our human intellect more than we should. We place all our dependence on our intelligence and abilities, and do not rely at all on the work of the Holy Spirit in us…
Therefore, during this fasting period, each one of us must cling to the Lord and struggle with God before struggling with his own will. Cry out to God and say:
I am the one who will knock on Your door this time, and I will remain until You remove the stone from the mouth of the tomb and say to Lazarus, “Come out.” Yes, if I am dead in sin, then You, O Lord, are able to raise the dead…
Consider me dead and raise me up. And sing in my ears Your beloved song to my soul: “This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Yes, O Lord, for the dead has no will by which he can act; he must be raised by a power from above, a power outside of himself, in which he has no role… Thus it is with me.
Examples of the Raising of the Dead
Christ raised many, but the Scripture presented to us only three examples, each with a special significance.
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The example of Jairus’ daughter. She was inside the house. And the Lord said about her that she was sleeping. She represents those who have died while inside the Church!
Like a person who attends church meetings, practices all its activities, perhaps is diligent in confession, spiritual readings, and prayers… yet he is dead… He does not feel the Spirit in his worship, as the Lord said: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” He has a form of godliness; “he has a name that he is alive, but he is dead,” like the angel of the church of Sardis (Rev 3:1). He was an angel of a church, yet he was dead!! This type God raised and considered merely asleep.
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Another type is represented by the son of the widow of Nain. They placed him in a coffin and went out from the house to the road. He represents those who left the Church…
They left its activities, its divine mysteries, and the means of grace. Yet they were not placed in the tomb; they were not buried… This type also Christ raised and returned him to his mother, that is, to the Church from which he had departed.
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The third type is represented by Lazarus, who died and was buried in the tomb for four days, until it was said that he had begun to decay, and his sisters wept over him… and the Lord also wept.
This type is neither in the house of the Lord nor on the road, but buried in the tomb. He may have left the Church, left the means of grace, and lived in sin for a long time until he decayed, and perhaps left the life of faith altogether. And his resurrection became, in the eyes of people, an impossible matter…
This person, whom the Church wept over, whom the saints of contemplation wept over represented by Mary, and the saints of service represented by Martha, this one also Christ raised.
The story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead teaches us not to despair.
It teaches us that even if we enter the tomb, we will one day come out of it to life.
A thought may come to you that your condition has become very bad, and that you have deteriorated to the worst state. Formerly, sin used to run after you, but now you are the one who runs after it. You used to sin and your conscience would rebuke you; now you sin and your conscience does not trouble you. You used to live in sin, yet still be affected by spiritual means; now you are not affected by any of the means of grace…
Despite all this, do not despair. For the Lord will raise you.
God is able to raise you, but He wants you to show your love for Him. Say to Him as the prophet David said: “With my whole heart I have sought You.”
He is ready to snatch you from the depths of sin, but He asks you the same question He asked many others:
Do you want to be made well?
Say: Yes, O Lord, I want…
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Sixth Year (Issue Thirteen), 28-3-1975.
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