The Way of Love Requires Simplicity and Meekness

We should do everything simply and meekly.

This means that our spiritual labor must be done in secret. Our effort should never be discerned by others or even ourselves. Jesus says, Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing (Matt 6:3). As we grow spiritually, in the Way of Love, we leave behind our old self that questions everything and we surrender in love to Christ. We become a new person in Christ. We don’t want the old self to know and then distract us.  In this sense we keep our efforts a secret even to ourselves. We endlessly, privately, seek union with our lover, God.

He says,

The whole secret lies in simplicity and meekness. When simplicity is lacking and you say, “I'll do this, that and the other, and God will give me what I ask for," then nothing happens. Yes, indeed, I should do this, that and the other, but with such secrecy and such simplicity and such meekness that even I who ask for the thing am unconscious of it.

Simplicity means doing everything without any ulterior motivation.

He says,

Don’t say I’ll do this in order to have that result”, but do it naturally, without taking cognizance of it. That is pray simply and don’t think about what God will bestow on your soul…. Good heartedness and simplicity attract the grace of God, they are preconditions for God to come and make his abode in us.

A lesson from Scripture:

Love righteousness, you that judge the earth: be mindful of the Lord in goodness and seek Him in simplicity of heart; for He is found with those who do not tempt Him , and appears to those who are not unfaithful to Him; devious thoughts separate from God, and His power, when it is tested, reproves the unwise; for wisdom shall not enter into an evil-crafted soul, nor dwell in a body that is mortgaged to sin. (Wisdom 1:1-4)

Reference: Wounded By Love, pp 138-139