What Does It Mean to be "Spiritually Confident"?

Opening to and embracing the roots of one's deeper presence

Growth in grace brings expansion of confidence. You will love with great ardor and knock on the door with greater assurance, in order to gain what you perceive to be still wanting in you. “The one who knocks will always have the door open to him.” — Christian mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux

Here is a little quiz: Contemplate incompleteness, lack, emptiness, and failure: In which realms are these considered precursors to success and in which realms are they the spellers of doom, gloom, and depression?

I think we can all agree that in the realm of the world, these states are most undesirable. You are a lost puppy, a needy child, an unfulfilled adult, and a blot in society.

But now let’s look into the realm of spirit. These are considered not only DESIRABLE but NECESSARY to open the door to and desire for grace, to enter into something larger, deeper, and higher, where the world has feared to tread.

In fact, the Greek religious term kenosis, explicitly means the practice of intentionally “emptying” oneself in order to be filled up by grace, spirit, goodness, and godness. It comes from a term applied to Jesus, who emptied himself of DIVINE nature to become humanly empathetic. We conversely, in spiritual practice empty ourselves of WORLDLY nature to become spiritually blessed, graced, and filled.

Once the distractions and attractions of the pleasant and addictive elements of this world lose their grip on us, usually through injury, job loss, divorce, death of a loved one, or some other dramatic “failure”, we can be thrown by trauma unintentionally into this emptiness. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, from a spiritually confident level, if we acknowledge an opening. Though no rational person would choose grave misfortune or trauma, an opportunity for spiritual deepening comes in the same breath as tragedy.

How does one handle this? What does spiritual confidence mean in the face of loss or challenge? Let’s get to the Greek roots of those words. Spirit comes from Greek word for “breath”. The breath or ether or ghost is used for the acknowledgement of our non-material, living nature. “Confidence” comes from the Latin term for “with” (con) “trust” (fide) or to “trust with”.

So “spiritual confidence” is really to “trust in/with the breath or spirit”. If the material world has dealt you a blow, and all seems lost, then you have been emptied and invited to trust the spirit. Of course, this can be done voluntarily in addition to being “thrown into” it, as one practices stillness and silence, fasting, letting go of material things (as with Lent and other practices). All are emptying in order to be filled with something greater.

We are fast entering a crazy world that is outstripping our rational and technological conceits around control. Our own judgments fail. Even the best attempts at helping ourselves or trusting authority have largely backfired, and we hide from the acknowledgement that our best attempts have capsized, and our trust in worldly authority has been abused.

So where might we turn?

If one looks to the Christian mystics, one finds some interesting and tested advice. These are the people who were at time considered heretics, chastised, or rejected by churchly authorities, because these mystics pushed the bounds of the world rigorously and inconveniently toward spirit— in oneself and away from the officiation of the self-anointed priests that attempt to oversee and control spiritual life on earth.

Spiritual confidence is unmediated, direct love of and trust in the spirit, along with a commitment to learn from it. This ironically is what the word “obedience” means in its Latin and Greek roots: “to hear beneath”, or, simply put, to put aside the lesser and to learn from the greater.

Trust more in the mercy of God and less in your own judgment. — Teresa of Avila

Love begets a likeness between the lover and the beloved.— John of the Cross

Trust steadfastly, that whatsoever comes, comes to help turn you from impermanent things to God. Without any doing of yours, God will send you one of two things: either an abundance of what is necessary, or the strength and patience to bear being in need.— Anonymous from The Cloud of Unknowing

The will of God is at each moment before us like an immense, inexhaustible ocean that no human heart can fathom; but none can receive from it more than he has the capacity to contain. It is necessary to enlarge this capacity by faith, confidence, and love.— Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Everything is possible for one who believes, still more for one who hopes, even more for one who loves, and most of all for one who practices and perseveres in these three virtues.— Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection

Is it, after all, realistic to cling arbitrarily to a single set standard in such a thing as mysticism, in which the great rule is that there are no rules— Thomas Merton

All quotes taken from The Little Book of Christian Mysticism by Carl McColman. Feel free to leave a comment below.

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