Today in reading from the book, Abandonment to Divine Providence - Jean-Pierre de Caussade, chapter 2. This section I felt is written with such beauty and vivid imagery I wanted to share with you.
God elicits from those whom he places in this state the most perfect docility to the action of his grace.
To walk the path by which we live for God alone and our present duty, we must be detached from everything we feel or do. We must cut off all more distant views. We must confine ourselves to the duty of the present moment without thinking of what preceded it or what will follow it. I suppose, of course, that God's law is secure and that the practice of abandonment has made you docile to divine action. You will have a feeling that will cause you to say, "I feel at present an affection for this person or book, I would like to give or receive this piece of advice, to make such or such a complaint, to open myself to this person or receive confidences, to give or do this thing or the other." You should follow this movement by the impression of grace without supporting yourself an instant by your own reflections, reasoning, or efforts. We must apply ourselves to things for the time that God wishes without mixing ourselves up in them personally. The will of God is applied to us in the state of which we are speaking. It should completely take the place of all our ordinary supports.
Each moment has its obligatory virtue to which those who have abandoned themselves are faithful, yet they miss nothing of what they read or hear. The most mortified novice does not fulfill her duties better than they. That is why such people are now led to one book and now to another, or to make this or that remark on some trifling event. God gives them at one moment the desire to instruct themselves in what at another moment will support their virtue.
In all that they do, they feel only the attraction of the action without knowing why. All they can say reduces to this, "I feel drawn to write, to read, to ask this question, to look at that object. I follow this inclination and God who bestows it upon me makes my heart a reserve-fund of such things to be in the future the means of further attractions which will enable me to make use of them in my own interest and that of others." This is what obliges such people to be simple, gentle, flexible, and mobile under the slightest, almost imperceptible, impressions of the divine breeze.
In the state of abandonment, the one rule is the present moment. We are as light as a feather, as fluid as water, simple as a child, as easily moved as a ball, so as to receive and follow all the impressions of grace. We have no more hardness or consistency than melted metal. For just as metal takes all the shapes of the mold into which it is poured, we adapt and adjust ourselves as easily to all the forms which God wishes to give us. In a word, our disposition resembles that of the air which is at the service of all who breathe it and of water which takes the form of every container.
We present ourselves to God like a perfectly plain and simple canvas, without concerning ourselves to know the subject which it may please God to paint in our hearts, for we trust ourselves to him. We are abandoned and wholly occupied with our duty, thinking neither of ourselves nor of what is necessary for us, nor of how we are to procure it.
The more, however, we apply ourselves to our little job, so simple, so hidden, so contemptible (as its outward appearance may be), the more God diversifies and beautifies us. On the background of simple love and obedience, his hands love to trace the most beautiful details, the most delicate and exquisite drawings, the most divine figures; "The Lord has set aside the faithful for himself" (Ps 4: 3). A canvas that is blindly abandoned to the painter's brush merely receives each moment the impact of the brush. Similarly if a stone could feel it would feel nothing but the cruel edge of the chisel cutting it away and destroying it, for the stone being chipped by repeated blows is totally unaware of the figure which is being carved out of it by these blows. It feels only a chisel which is reducing it in size, is beating it, cutting it and changing its shape.
Take for instance a poor bit of stone which you make into a crucifix or a statue, although the stone does not know it. Suppose you ask it, "What is happening to you?" It might answer, "Don't ask me. As far as I am concerned there is nothing for me to know or to do except to remain steady under the hand of my master, to love this master and to put up with his treatment. As for what I am destined to be, it is his business to know how to manage that. I do not know what he is doing or what I am being turned into by his work. I only know that whatever he is doing is best and most perfect, and I accept each blow of the chisel as the most excellent thing for me, although to speak the truth every blow makes me feel that I am being ruined, defaced, and destroyed. But I leave all this to him and content myself with the present moment, thinking only of my duty; and I accept this skillful master's treatment of me without knowing or troubling myself about it."
Yes, dear friends, simple believers, leave to God what belongs to him and remain loving and passive under his action. Hold for certain that what happens to you internally and externally is for the best. Leave God to act and abandon yourselves to him. Let the point of the knife and the needle work. Let the brush of the master cover you with a variety of colors that seem only to disfigure the canvas of your soul. Correspond with all these divine operations by the uniform and simple disposition of a complete self-abandonment, self-forgetfulness and application to your duty. Keep to the line of your own advance and, without knowing the map of the country or the details, names, and directions of the land you are passing through, walk blindly along that line and everything will be indicated to you if you remain passive. Seek only the kingdom of God and his justice in love and obedience, and all the rest will be given you.
There are many who are disturbed and ask, "Who will give us holiness, perfection, mortification, direction?" Let them hunt up in books the precise terms and qualities of this wonderful business, its nature and parts. As for you, remain in peace in the unity of God by your love and walk blindly in the clear straight path of your obligations. The angels are at your side in this night, and their hands make a barrier around you. If God wishes more from you, his inspiration will make it known to you.