I have already shared with you the first two rungs or steps on Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent. They are: Renunciation and Detachment. Hopefully they have made sense to you. If they have not, think about them again and come up with what they mean to you.

The third step on John’s Ladder is Exile. If we have renounced the world and detached ourselves from worldly ways, we see ourselves as spiritual and material   beings that live on this earth as exiles. We see ourselves as beings who are here to learn how to be Christ-like – to truly be God’s children. St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Hebrews (13:14): For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. St. John Chrysostom writes:

If you are a Christian, no earthly city is yours. Of our City “the Builder and Maker is God”. Though we may gain possession of the whole world, we are withal but strangers and sojourners in it all. We are enrolled in heaven: our citizenship is there!

I realize that it is difficult for most people to think in this manner. We only know this earthly existence and it is hard to conceive anything other than this existence. Further, I believe that it frightens most people to think about being detached from the things of this world and to stop putting all of their trust in this world. The things of this world are tangible. The things of the next world are intangible! And, is the next world real? I cannot prove its existence. I can only believe that it exists.

So the challenge is to develop the faith in God’s revelation about the next world to such a degree that I can detach myself from this world and sense that I am living in exile!

Ask yourself: How attached am I to the things to this world? Do I really believe there is a world to come? Can I trust and believe in the God I think exists?