I have been sharing with you, my readers, the thoughts of Theophan the Recluse about what it means to be human. He asserts that we humans are, if we do not make a decision to think about God and our salvation, people who experience a certain emptiness of mind, will and heart. The only way that we can change this is by making a decision to focus our attention on building our relationship with God. When we do this, the emptiness we experience is somehow mitigated.

Theophan states that if you look at a sinner’s inward disposition and outward state, you will find that sometimes the sinner knows much but is blind with regards to their works of God and the matters of his salvation. It will be evident, Theophan states, that though he is incessantly trouble, he is not active with respect to the establishment of his salvation.

As I shared with you last week, when a person responds to the call to holiness, he/she is saved – salvation becomes real. It takes an act of the will! We have to want to focus our attention on salvation and make an effort to know God.

Theophan states that even though a sinner may experience the emptiness and have a desire to escape this emptiness, he/she is completely dead and insensitive to anything that deals with the spiritual. The sinner becomes earth-bound, only thinking about the things of this present earthly life and forgets about the spiritual dimension.

Again, the only thing that can change this is a voluntary decision to choose to focus on the spiritual dimension – to direct our attention to God and salvation. It means thinking about our future life after our physical death – to think about our eternal life.

Each of us must ask ourselves: Do I think about my spiritual life and about God? Am I concerned about spiritual growth? If not, why not? I would extend to each of my readers a call to holiness!