St. Theodorus the Great Ascetic writes that things can only be understood in terms of their purpose. This describes not only the whole, but also the parts which make up that whole. Every bit has a piece to play in the overarching purpose of a specific thing. He later writes that the purpose of our life is blessedness, or what is the same thing, the kingdom of heaven or of God. Simplified, he says our purpose is to receive an “influx of the divine”, for by the influx that which is lacking and imperfect in us is supplied and perfected.

Sometimes I feel like I know what my purpose in life is – to glorify God, or to “make disciples”…things like that. But truly, these are all purposes of my own power. A can opener’s purpose is to open cans, but it cannot do it by its own power. By its own power its only purpose is to sit there and look like a can opener should. Its purpose is to sit there patiently until someone of greater purpose come along and takes a hold of the can opener and uses it for a purpose that is beyond what it could do on its own. I am much like this can opener. I can make purposes that sound good, and are necessary – but truly the “influx of the divine” is a direct statement about our powerlessness and our purposelessness without a being of higher purpose coming along to enable us to live for the purest purposes we are able.

Theodorus calls this “deification”. I have always been a little nervous about this phrase, which means we become more and more of God. (not just like God!) However, if we truly believe that we are used by God to fulfill the greatest purpose in our lives, we again must see ourselves as being the extension of God into the world for his purposes. Much like a pen, a writer is only tacitly aware that she is touching the pen; rather she feels the paper and the words she is writing with the pen. Of course, this is not a simple process. We have all been introduced to the pen at one point in our life, and it was not a smooth transition from finger paint and scribbles. When we learned to write, we not only learned an alphabet, we learned to inhabit a tool and send an influx of our own nature through the tool and express ourselves on the other side. Deification is much the same process. God is introduced to something new in us, and when we invite him to take our life and live through us, we become the pen through which he will write his masterpiece. At first pens and fingers do not always cooperate, and there are wide margins and larger prints, but over time, God’s writing through us becomes a majestic calligraphy of divine beauty. This “influx of the divine” is a slow, wonderful, painful process of sacrifice and patience. But in the end we arrive at our purpose – blessedness in the Kingdom of God’s Heaven, right here on earth.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 7:10 am and is filed under Human Nature, Kingdom of God, Purpose, Spiritual Formation, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.