Seek the Giver, not the gifts
Seek the Giver
Teresa watched many earnest souls make the same mistake: they came to prayer chasing its consolations — the warm feelings, the sense of sweetness, the spiritual experiences — and treated those sensations as the goal. When the feelings came, they thought themselves close to God; when the feelings dried up, they thought God had gone, and either despaired or went hunting for the next spiritual high.
Her correction was bracing and freeing: do not seek the consolations of God; seek the God of consolations. The sweet feelings, when they come, are gifts, not the Giver — and to fall in love with the gifts is to miss the One who gives them. The soul must learn to want God himself, whether or not he sends any felt sweetness at all.
Habakkuk reached the same summit. Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vine, he sings, though the fields yield no food and the stalls stand empty — yet, on the far side of that hardest word, he will rejoice. Joy in God himself, stripped of every consolation, when nothing pleasant is left but God. That is a soul that has learned to seek the Giver and not the gifts.
“Yet I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!”
— Habakkuk — Habakkuk 3:18 (WEB)
Seek the Giver himself, not the gifts of felt sweetness — wanting God so wholly that you could lose every consolation and still rejoice in him.
“My soul, you have said to the LORD, 'You are my Lord. Apart from you I have no good thing.'”
We become connoisseurs of spiritual feelings, chasing the consolations of prayer and mistaking the sensations for God, so our faith rises and falls with the mood and crashes in every dry spell. The interior work is to want the Giver more than the gifts — receiving consolations with thanks when they come, but seeking God himself even when no sweetness accompanies him — until joy in God survives the stripping away of every felt reward.
This week, when prayer feels sweet, thank God for the gift but fix your desire on him, not the feeling; and when it feels dry, seek him just as earnestly, refusing to chase the high or measure his nearness by your mood.
It is easy for disordered love to fix on the sweetness of prayer instead of its God, until felt nearness becomes the thing you actually crave and its absence feels like ruin. But a heart that wants the Giver more than the gift can rejoice in the LORD when every consolation is gone — and nothing withheld can shake it, because nothing withheld was ever the point.
It is dangerously easy to become a connoisseur of spiritual feelings — to pursue the experiences of prayer, the sense of God's nearness, the emotional sweetness, and to mistake those sensations for God himself. The trouble is that feelings come and go, and a faith built on them rises and falls with the mood, chasing the next high and crashing in every dry spell.
Teresa points past the gifts to the Giver. The consolations, when God sends them, are kindnesses to be received with thanks — but they are not the point, and a mature soul learns to want God even when no sweetness accompanies him. Apart from you I have no good thing, the psalmist tells God — not God plus his gifts, but God himself as the only good worth having. Make that your aim: to seek the Giver so wholly that you could lose every consolation and still rejoice in him.
- Have I been chasing the feelings of God rather than God himself?
- Does my sense of his nearness rise and fall with my mood?
- Could I lose every consolation and still rejoice in the Giver?
Lord, I have chased the sweetness of prayer and mistaken the feelings for you. Teach me to seek the Giver, not the gifts. Let me want you so wholly that, like Habakkuk, I could lose everything pleasant and still rejoice in the God of my salvation. Amen.