Abandonment

Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. PSALM 37:5

If one word belongs to Madame Guyon more than any other, it is abandonment. She used it constantly, and it has become attached to her name. For some readers it is the most liberating word in her vocabulary; for others it is the most alarming. Both reactions have their reasons, and this chapter tries to do justice to each.

The key to the inner life

In A Short and Easy Method of Prayer she introduces abandonment as the point where the life of prayer must become a life given to God. “Abandonment is the key to the inner life: he who is thoroughly abandoned will soon be perfect.” She defines it simply as the casting off of all care of ourselves, to leave ourselves to be guided entirely by God.

It begins, she says, with a conviction: that all which happens to us moment by moment is the will of God, and therefore what we need. That conviction makes us content with everything, and lets us see even the commonest events as coming from God rather than from the creature. And it continues with a resolve: not to take ourselves back once we are given. A thing once given away, she reminds her readers, is no longer at our disposal.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. ROMANS 12:1

She insists that this is not a special vocation for a few. All Christians, she says, are exhorted to abandonment, and she quotes the Lord’s words about taking no thought for the morrow and the proverb about acknowledging God in all our ways.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. PROVERBS 3:5–6

The past, the future and the present

Her most memorable summary of what abandonment looks like in practice is a single phrase: “leaving the past in forgetfulness, the future to providence, and giving the present to God.”

That is wise counsel for anxious people, and most of us are anxious people. The past is a great burden to some: old sins, old wounds, old regrets turned over endlessly. The future is a great burden to others: what will happen to the children, the money, the health, the church. Her counsel is to hand both to God — the past to His mercy, the future to His providence — and to live in the one place where we can actually meet Him, the present moment.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. MATTHEW 6:34

She adds a phrase that is easy to miss and important. We are to see all things as coming from God’s hand, she says, “with the exception only of our own sin.” Abandonment does not mean treating our sins as God’s will. It means receiving what God sends and refusing what He forbids.

The pattern of the Lord and His mother

The deepest pattern of abandonment is in the Gospels. When the angel came to Mary with news that would upend her life, her answer was a simple giving of herself.

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. LUKE 1:38

And in Gethsemane the Lord Himself, facing the cross, prayed the prayer that every act of Christian abandonment echoes.

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. LUKE 22:42

Notice what He did not do. He did not pretend not to feel the horror of the cup. He asked for it to be removed. And then He gave Himself. Abandonment is not the absence of desire; it is desire surrendered to a greater love.

Where abandonment needs guarding

So far, so good. But her language sometimes goes further than Scripture, and readers who take her seriously must notice where.

First, she says we should hold firmly to our abandonment without listening to reason or to reflection. She means that we should not keep reopening the question of whether to trust God every time trouble comes, and that is sound. But taken strictly it could suggest that the Christian must stop thinking. Scripture never asks that. Our abandonment to God is itself our reasonable service, and He gave us minds to use in His service.

Second, she says we should be indifferent to all things, whether temporal or spiritual, for the body or the soul. Again, she means that we should not cling to anything above God, and should accept His will whatever it brings. But indifference is a dangerous word. Scripture commands us to care for our families, to seek justice for the oppressed, to strive for holiness and to lay hold of eternal life. A Christian who is indifferent to these is not abandoned to God; he is disobedient to Him.

Third, the conviction that everything that happens is the will of God can, if misapplied, become a kind of fatalism. God rules over all things, and works them for good to those who love Him.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. ROMANS 8:28

But the same God commands us to use means: to work, to take medicine, to flee persecution when we can, to resist injustice by lawful means, to plan wisely. Joseph could say that God meant his brothers’ evil for good; he did not therefore say that their evil was good, and he still stored grain against the famine.

But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. GENESIS 50:20

These criticisms are not a reason to set the word aside. They are a reason to hold it as she, at her best, meant it: a heart handed over to God, content with His will, freed from anxious care — and still thinking, still working, still obeying.

Not taking ourselves back

The hardest part of abandonment is not the first gift but the keeping of it. Most Christians have at some point given themselves to God. Most have taken themselves back many times since, usually without noticing, when a trouble came that they did not like. Her plea is simple: do not do it. When you are tempted to reclaim your life, remember that you have given it away, and leave it where it is.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name one regret from the past that you keep turning over. Give it, in plain words, to God’s mercy.

2. Name one fear about the future. Give it, in plain words, to God’s providence.

3. Ask what God is giving you in this present day, and receive it from His hand.

4. Consider where you have taken yourself back from God since you first gave yourself to Him. Give yourself again.

5. Guard the balance: identify one duty — of work, care or justice — that abandonment must not be allowed to excuse you from.

A PRAYER

Father, I gave myself to You, and then I took myself back whenever the road grew hard.

I give myself again now, the whole of me, to be guided by You.

I leave my past with Your mercy, my future with Your providence, and I give You this present day.

Keep me from mistaking indifference for trust, and let my abandonment make me more obedient, not less. Amen.