Mission Monthly – February 1999
“Therefore, he who desires to know the truth, let him arouse himself for a long time to fervent prayer, and to the work which he desires. During the time of prayer the enemy cannot conceal the truth, since he has no power. You can experience the truth of such faith in deeds.”
St. Paisius Velichkovsky
There are times when our nakedness before God is most obvious. Times of great uncertainty, loss, serious illness, disappointment, change, etc… These times, though certainly not exclusively, are when people often fall to their knees seeking answers to the complex questions of truth and the will of God.
“How do I fervently and rightly pray?” “What does it mean to be naked before God?” These two questions are of great importance when contemplating the course of repentance necessary for seeking a right relationship with the Lord and HIS answers to our questions. A right response to His grace is the first step towards our entrance with Christ and His victory over the devil and death!
Coming to terms with our nakedness is one of the primary purposes of spiritual discipline. To be naked before God is to courageously embrace God’s love and His knowledge of all our hidden and secret sins, to seek His mercy in the revelation of our sin in order that we may confess it, and to submit ourselves completely in obedience to the work of an unworthy servant before God and our brother. Sadly, preoccupations with the affairs of the world and our own ideas and opinions often obscure our view and many times successfully cover our nakedness with distractions, fear and selfish deceit. The tragedy of this (beyond the obvious distorted view of life) is how pretentious and unprepared people can be when discerning their real needs and understanding these words of the Apostle, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:3-4).
“O Lord, I know not what to ask of Thee. Thou alone knowest what are my true needs. Thou lovest me more than I myself know how to love. Help me to see my real needs which are concealed from me. I dare not ask either a cross or consolation but can only wait on thee. Visit and help me for Thy great mercy’s sake. Strike me and heal me. Cast me down and raise me up. I worship in silence Thy holy will and Thine inscrutable ways. I offer myself as a sacrifice to Thee. You have said, O Lord, ‘A man’s mind plans his way but the Lord directs his steps.’ Do not forsake me, O Lord, for in Thee have I put my trust. I have no other desire than to fulfill Thy will. Teach me how to pray. Pray Thou Thyself in me.”These humbling words of the morning prayer of Metropolitan PHILARET of Moscow (+1867) have been a great help in instructing many how to pray. They have taught me that God is Sovereign and that if I desire to participate in His will I need to strip myself of self-will and become fervent in the process of repentance. They have taught me that if I minimize the life and work to which I have been called in Christ and His Church the only truth I may ever know is (tragically) my own. They have taught me that without zeal for brokenness and watchfulness the veil of my passions will never allow the experience of the Kingdom of God within me. They have taught me that I am being formed in Christ’s image… not Christ in my own.
The greatest blessing of this is that by God’s grace, in the Church and with a sincere effort, one may actually receive a gift of discernment and “come to the knowledge of the Truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). But make no mistake, it does take much humility, time and “fervent” dedication. Fervent prayer is born from the genuine desire to know God as He reveals Himself and from our surrender to the holy work of God’s people. Recognition and acceptance of our nakedness before God is born from mature and moral discrimination, continually confessing our sin and rejecting any temptation to self-justification. The experience of God’s Truth is there for all to pursue and for many to receive. If we go about it correctly, through obedience to the life of the Church, the enemy will indeed have no power to deceive us; only then, by God’s grace, may one actually see these words of Christ fulfilled, “and greater works than these will he show him, that you may marvel” (John 5:20).