God Is Not Your Therapist - He Is Majesty.
The Kingdom of God is not fragile, emotional, or reactive. It is immovable. This matters for today’s exhausted, traumatized human person. We do not begin healing by exploring our wounds. That would only blind our vision. We begin by recovering the truth that God is throne-first, not problem-first. Your life rests on a mountain that does not move.
VISION ONE from Scivias : God Enthroned Shows Himself to Hildegard
Each part of her visionary books introduces each vision and then her explanation which she received during the visionary act. Here is the first one.
I saw a great mountain the color of iron, and enthroned on it One of such great glory that it blinded my sight. On each side of him there extended a soft shadow, like a wing of wondrous breadth and length. Before him, at the foot of the mountain, stood an image full of eyes on all sides, in which, because of those eyes, I could discern no human form. In front of this image stood another, a child wearing a tunic of subdued color but white shoes, upon whose head such glory descended from the One enthroned upon that mountain that I could not look at its face. But from the One who sat enthroned upon that mountain many living sparks sprang forth, which flew very sweetly around the images. Also, I perceived in this mountain many little windows, in which appeared human heads, some of subdued colors and some white.
And behold, He Who was enthroned upon that mountain cried out in a strong, loud voice saying, “O human, who are fragile dust of the earth and ashes of ashes! Cry out and speak of the origin of pure salvation until those people are instructed, who, though they see the inmost contents of the Scriptures, do not wish to tell them or preach them, because they are lukewarm and sluggish in serving God’s justice. Unlock for them the enclosure of mysteries that they, timid as they are, conceal in a hidden and fruitless field. Burst forth into a fountain of abundance and overflow with mystical knowledge, until they who now think you contemptible because of Eve’s transgression are stirred up by the flood of your irrigation. For you have received your profound insight not from humans, but from the lofty and tremendous Judge on high, where this calmness will shine strongly with glorious light among the shining ones.
Arise therefore, cry out and tell what is shown to you by the strong power of God’s help, for He Who rules every creature in might and kindness floods those who fear Him and serve Him in sweet love and humility with the glory of heavenly enlightenment and leads those who persevere in the way of justice to the joys of the Eternal Vision.
God is not manageable. He is Majesty.
In a culture that reduces God to a therapeutic presence, a life coach ready to respond on a Zoom call to your every dilemma, a spiritual idea for spirituality that suits individualistic morality, Hildegard restores the ancient truth: God of awakenings leads you first to acknowledge your true needs. Without the fear of God and Poverty of the spirit we can not see it. It is grace to see as God sees, with heavenly attentiveness, vigilance to good, sensitivity to evil. It is the antidote to naivety and slothfulness. Humility clothed with strength can unlock the mysteries that are hidden in plain sight. Transformation flows through humility, not self-sufficiency.
Lukewarmness is not rebellion; it is exhaustion.
Her diagnosis of the state of humanity reaches our age: Lukewarmness is not rebellion; it is exhaustion. People are weary, slumbering, spiritually dehydrated. And God’s desire is not condemnation, it is awakening. Because humanity is lukewarm, sluggish, spiritually pacified, avoiding the Scriptures' depths and solitude which sparkles truth. It is afraid of the responsibilities that come with revelation. The pathology of seeking answers within human body and soul and spirit without seeing the majesty of God first will end with self-gazing, self-healing, self-help and self-indoctrination. Spiritual narcissism.
The antidote is to embrace the Fear of the Lord, the capacity to perceive reality as God sees it which leads to the beginning of all wisdom. Poverty of Spirit will add a sobriety of mind, freedom from self-display, and the heart that the Holy Spirit can rest upon. Together they form the gate into contemplation, spiritual authority, and viriditas, vitality of the soul and body.
It is a Spiritual Intervention.
It tells the modern person: You do not start with your wounds but with the majesty of God’s vision where He sits on the throne, he declares what’s what, how and when and why. You start with the fire that descends from heaven and turns the humble into sparks of divine glory.
A Field That Should Bear Fruit but Doesn’t
A field of the heart is created for sowing, growth, harvest, bringing nourishment. When God calls it “fruitless,” He is saying: These people possess divine truth but produce nothing with it. They do not want to give up their scrolling, Netflix, arguments, gluttony, excess to focus on what matters. It is not that people have no desire for God, they just have no room for Him. They are filled to the brim with everything else. And when the Spirit is quenched, all other spiritualities arise to fill the void among seekers, avoiders, and the churched:
pop psychology becomes pseudo-salvation - the language of healing replaces the language of holiness, boundaries replace repentance, triggers replace examination of conscience, self-worth replaces imago Dei
personal experience becomes guru - testimony replaces doctrine, emotion becomes authority
trauma becomes an identity - wounds become identity markers, victimhood replaces virtue, inner fragmentation is accepted as the self rather than healed by grace
personality typing becomes identity - replaces baptismal identity, the numbers/letters become the narrative; the narrative becomes the truth
self-help becomes the Gospel - ‘moving on’ replaces conversion of life, therapy replaces sanctification, comfort mimics mercy. God is reduced to a cosmic life coach
breathwork becomes tantric release - instead of receiving the Holy Spirit, we try to manufacture transcendence through sensation
manifestation becomes revelation - the will replaces the Word, desire replaces discernment, vision boards replace vocation
embodiment becomes sexual perversion - tantric practices, popular psychedelics are presented as nervous-system support and healing from the past wounds
Underneath every practice is a theology, and theology determines direction. Hildegard saw this danger in her own century: when the Spirit is quenched and the mysteries are hidden in a fruitless field, people will grasp at any spiritual sensation to fill the drought.
And so even the Church becomes spiritually crowded but not spiritually formed, comfortable, but not converted, busy, but not burning.This is why her first vision begins not with the self, but with God enthroned in blinding majesty. Only that vision can reorient a generation drowning in spiritual counterfeits.