How to Put Out into the Deep

This will serve to unmask a temptation, sometimes subtle, which is very common in the Christian life, one into which many fall and which greatly impedes spiritual progress.

It concerns precisely the temptation to believe that, in the situation which is ours (personal, family, etc.), we lack something essential and that because of this, our progress, and the possibility of blossoming spiritually, is denied us....

With the impression that all would go better, we would like the things around us to change, that the circumstances would change.  But this is often an error.  It is not the exterior circumstances that must change; it is above all our hearts that must change.  They must be purified of their withdrawal into themselves, of their sadness, of their lack of hope....

Happy are those whose hearts are purified by faith and hope, who bring to their lives a view animated by the certitude that, beyond appearances to the contrary, God is present, providing for their essential needs and that they lack nothing.  If they have that faith, they will indeed see God: they will experience that presence of God which will accompany them and guide them.  They will see that many of the circumstances that they thought negative and damaging to their spiritual life are, in fact, in God's pedagogy, powerful means for helping them to progress and grow.