Choosing to expect - even without signs

Chapter 6

 Let us return to the question of faith and expecting in prayer. How can we expect that God will deliver what we ask when we have so many past experiences of His not delivering? Here we are at the centre of the nature of faith. God promises, but He does not appear to deliver. Often people observe the effects of prayer selectively. When their prayer is for sunny weather and it is sunny, they remember it is an answer to prayer; but when it rains they forget it. Or they feel God said no. But in the matter of a deeper loving and a deeper trusting God will never say no. His whole purpose in choosing to create us is precisely to share Himself with us. He is always wanting and able to increase our love and our faith. Why then doesn't He? 

How do we know He doesn't? We make judgements about whether or not the grace has been given. We feel we have signs of the grace, and if they do not appear, we conclude that the grace has not been given. But what if these signs are not valid? 

St. Francis de Sales says that the spiritual journey is much like sailing across the ocean. On the first morning you come up on deck, and you look around, and you see nothing but water in every direction. Are you going forward or backward? You do not know. The captain knows, and you trust the captain. What if there really are no signs of growth in the spiritual life, signs by which I can accurately measure my growth.

What if we are forced to rely on the Lord's word, and to trust in the promises He has made? But can't we measure growth in love, for example? Once I would not even speak to Olga, and now, ever since the retreat, I have been speaking to her. My angry feelings are gone. Isn't that a sure sign? Not at all. 

Love is a good example of the problem, since all growth in the spiritual life in its essence a growth in love. But love is a more peculiar reality. It is not self-conscious. The lover's consciousness is elsewhere. Where there is love, there is a great sensitivity to the needs of others. There is no great focus on the self. Remember the man who leaped into the icy river to save the drowning woman. When he came back, he was unaware of having done anything that heroic. That is the very nature of love. A love that is conscious of it's own loving is only superficial. Love turns our eyes outward toward the needs of our fellows. Love fixes the lover's attention on the needs of others. 

Jesus does not invite us to check on God's faithfulness but to trust in it: to know that God delivers, no matter how things may appear; to choose to believe Him even without evidence. Any other believing would be no believing.  

(Taken from “The Coming of Consolation" by William P. Sampson, SJ.)