November 4, 2025
“A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart God will not despise.”
I asked God to give me my place in this life. To find where I will be most useful, most fulfilled within myself. Where the confines of my sinful bonds will loosen, and the anxious doldrums will cease to constrict my heart.
He said, “no, your place is where you are, right at this very moment; dig deeper into your heart. Find the deep well of your heart.”
During periods of our life in Christ, the Lord allows the demons to dry our prayer. To stifle our walk so that we lose sight of His presence and begin to feel alone and alienated. Where we begin to reach for almost anything that will mimic the sweet nectar of His embrace. He does this so that we may choose to get up again, push through the confines of those walls and wring out the tears in our, sometimes, mechanical, mouthed meditations.
But the friction is still not over. The demon, who is a wily wasp, sees us reaching for the Lord and loosens up his grip so that, while we pray, fruitful thoughts enter our mind and spring forth vainglorious views to give us the perception that we have achieved edified enlightenment; fruits of folly that will lead us to stop our prayer and rush to give insight to others with our freshly, found fortitude. It was God who provided this to us, after all.
But God then reiterates, “no, your place is where you are, right at this very moment; dig deep into your heart. Find the deep well of your heart. Do not stop your prayer, you are right where you need to be.” The enlightenment of others belongs to Him and only Him. What possibly could we provide that is more astounding to others in this day of information, judgement, constant clamor, than our silence. Our utter motionlessness, and silence?
Furthermore, what other activity is there that will shake us up, and garner an earthquake in our heart that will lead us to a deeper repentance than going against the grain of this world, which teaches us to instantly find all the answers; or the vainglorious need to heap yet more personally-prescribed proficiency to the already overflowing orifice of overt oratory, than our silence?
In the book Remember Thy First Love, Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou reminds us that our hearts are deep wells and that the Lord allows tiny earthquakes to shake us up so that we may dig deeper into our heart, “The Christian culture of shaking us up helps to discover the deep heart without which we cannot truly receive the gift of Pentecost, the shedding of the Spirit upon all flesh. We need that sensible heart, so precious in the sight of God, to which the third Old Testament reading for the feast of Pentecost refers, in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that our invocation of the Name of Christ in that sensible deep heart may be salutary and bring forth new life.”
He continues, “when the Lord bestows upon man the delicate gift of His Humble Holy Spirit, man’s right response is to conceal it and ponder it in his heart. If he decides to display his gift out of pride, not only will he lose it, but he will also provoke his brother. To air our graces is to transgress against the second commandment of God, because in doing so, we invade the space of our brother. We ought always to give all the space to those around us and keep only minimal space for ourselves…no one can ever discover his deep heart if he is satisfied with the thought of his own glory. When we speak of the discovery of the deep heart, we mean that great mystery which belongs to the spiritual realm, when the whole of man’s being becomes heart.”
So let us, brothers and sisters, find solace in His presence. This voyage does not require GPS, Google Maps, long-winded sermons, social media reels, or overloaded fellowship around a campfire. It requires your astute attention, remembrance of Him right where you are, silence, and one tiny earthquake to lead us deeper into our hearts.
