What is the will of God? The Holy Fathers about God's providence and cutting off one's own will.

Divine Providence the incessant manifestation in the world of the all-good, all-wise and all-powerful, the incessant God, aimed at the preservation and development of the world, turning everything towards, directing humanity as a whole and each individual to the eternal. ( The meaning of the word craft, denoting a craft or type of craft, for example, folk craft, should not be confused with the meaning of the word “Providence” (God’s)).

If you want to know God's Providence, determine what your Christian duty is in the situation in which you find yourself today.

God provides and participates in people's lives, but often does not intervene in our lives in a visible way so that our free will can make voluntary choices. God's providence means that at every stage of our life the Lord places us in such conditions under which we could make a free choice in favor of goodness, truth, justice and through this ascend to Heavenly Father. However, the depths of God’s Providence are incomprehensible to the limited human mind, so that, knowing about God’s Providence, we are not able to comprehend it fully.

Very often pains and joys come to us not from our past, but from the future. God sometimes warns us about the future towards which we are rushing at full speed. God's providence, as it were, trips us up so that we fall before we fall into a hole that we do not yet see. Let your knee be broken, but let’s keep your head intact.
Deacon Andrey

One hermit asked God to make him understand the ways of His Providence, and imposed a fast on himself. When he went to visit an old man who lived far away, an Angel appeared to him in the form of a monk and offered to be his companion. In the evening, they stopped for the night with a pious man, who offered them food on a silver platter. But what a surprise! Immediately after the meal, the elder’s companion took the dish and threw it into the sea.
They went further and the next day stayed with another pious man. But trouble again! When the hermit and his companion began to prepare for the journey, the one who received them brought his young son to them to bless him. But instead of blessing, the companion, touching the boy, took his soul. Neither the old man, out of horror, nor the father, in despair, uttered a word. On the third day they took shelter in a dilapidated house. The elder sat down to eat food, and his companion first dismantled the wall and then repaired it again. Here the elder could not stand it: “Who are you - a demon or an angel? What are you doing? Three days ago you took away a dish from a good man, yesterday you took the life of a boy, and today you are straightening walls that no one needs.”
Do not be surprised, elder, and do not be tempted about me. I am the Angel of God. The first person to receive us acts in a manner pleasing to God, but he acquired that dish untruthfully, so I threw it away so that he would not lose his reward. The second husband is also pleasing to God, but if his son had grown up, he would have been a terrible villain. The owner of the house where we stayed is an immoral, lazy person and therefore became impoverished. His grandfather, while building this house, hid gold in the wall. That’s why I straightened the wall so that the owner wouldn’t find him and thereby die. Return, elder, to your cell and do not suffer madly, for this is what the Holy Spirit says: “The judgments of the Lord are unknown to men.” Therefore, do not test them either - it will not do you any good.

Everything is from God, both good and sorrowful, and unworthy; but one is by good will, the other by economy, the third by permission. And by good will - when we live virtuously, for it pleases God that we lead a sinless life, live virtuously and piously. According to the economy, when, falling into mistakes and sinning, we are admonished; by permission, when even those admonished we do not convert.
God was pleased that man should be saved, just as the angels cried out, saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men(). Again, economically, God admonishes us who sin, so that we are not condemned with the world, as the apostle says: We are judged by God and punished, lest we be condemned by the world (). And there is no evil in the city, which the Lord did not create(), are as follows: hunger, ulcers, illnesses, defeats, abuse; for all this serves to cleanse sin, who either do not want to live without sin, or those who are admonished do not convert, but remain in sin, as it is written: blind God their eyes and hardened their hearts(); And: betray them into an unskilled mind, that is, allowed them to freedom create incomparable(); Also: hardening I will harden Pharaoh's heart(), that is, I will allow him to become embittered for his disobedience.
Reverend

Providence of God

Archpriest Alexander Glebov

Is it possible to compare the Orthodox teaching about God's providence with the concept of human destiny? Today we will talk about this with a candidate of theology, teacher at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Archpriest Alexander Glebov.

K: Father Alexander, what is God’s providence?

A: A conversation about God’s providence opens up a very important topic – the topic of God’s responsibility for his creation. So we usually talk about our responsibility before God, that we will have to answer to God. Such a concept as God's providence speaks of God's responsibility for the human race and for the world He created. There is a religious and philosophical doctrine called “deism” - in it the concept of God’s providence is absent! Deism speaks of God as the creator of the world, but does not speak of God as the provider of the world. Yes, God created the world, God created man, endowed man with reason, free will, and, as it were, distanced himself from any participation in the further fate of this world. Figuratively speaking, he doesn’t care what happens in this world. Why did I mention deism? Because today many people, perhaps even without realizing it, share exactly this point of view. They see in the creative act of God the justification for the existence of this world, because to imagine that this world, so intelligently structured, so complexly organized, developing according to some specific laws, simply arose on its own out of nothing. This is quite problematic for many people to imagine. But at the same time, they do not see any intelligent presence of God in this world. In this world there is a lot of evil, a lot of injustice, people get sick, suffer, die. That is, on the one hand, they recognize that God created the world, because this world as a creation is beautiful and intelligently designed, but, at the same time, they refuse to recognize God’s providence, because what happens in our world is often not intelligent , illogical, cruel and chaotic.
In Christian revelation, such concepts as God the creator and God the provider are inextricably linked, because God’s very decision to create the world was made inextricably together with His decision to save this world. This dual decision of God about salvation and the creation of the world was called the “Eternal Council of the Holy Trinity.” Eternal means before time, before this age, before the creation of the world. And this eternal council was absolutely brilliantly depicted by the Monk Andrei Rublev on his icon, which is called “Trinity”. Since God in his trinity is impossible not only to depict, but even to somehow imagine, in the Orthodox tradition the Holy Trinity is depicted in the form of three angels who were revealed to Abraham at the oak of Mamre. But Rublev’s Trinity does not describe this historical episode, when three angels came to Abraham and announced to him the death of Sodom and Gomorrah. He takes the only possible image of the Holy Trinity mentioned in the Bible and fills it not with historical content, but with prehistoric, pre-eternal, he seems to depict this council of the pre-eternal Holy Trinity. Three angels are sitting at the table, on the table is a bowl, in the bowl you can see the head of a sacrificial animal and the angels look at each other, as if consulting, conferring among themselves, which of them will become this sacrifice - the Lamb of God. And when the decision is made that the second Person of the Holy Trinity will go into the world in order to become this sacrifice, in order to save this world, then after this the decision is made about the creation of the world itself, that is, God’s providence is, as it were, primary, and the act of creation is secondary .

K: How can human freedom be correlated with God’s providence, since man is free and can do whatever he wants? How to recognize what happens as a result of our achievements and mistakes, due to the evil or good will of other people, and what happens according to the will of God?

–A: This is a rather difficult question and it is probably impossible to give any comprehensive answer to it! There seems to be an obvious contradiction here, there just isn’t enough logic to cover it. On the one hand, we believe that the Lord guides every person, starting from his birth through life, but, on the other hand, you absolutely correctly said that a person is absolutely free and can do whatever he wants. He plans his life himself, although practice shows that our plans often remain plans and life goes according to a completely different scenario, not the way we planned it, and you have to do in life not what you want, but what you are forced to do circumstances for you. But still, freedom of choice always remains with a person. Moreover, we come under the influence of other people, sometimes this influence is good, sometimes it is evil, and if state law and criminal law somehow limit the evil will of people, punishing them for a crime, then the Lord does not limit anyone. You don’t have to look far for examples: now our TV viewers will watch this program, switch to the news program, and what will they hear there? News! What's the news? The same as yesterday! There are wars, terror flourishes, blood is shed, innocent people suffer, violence of one against another, and yet the Lord does not stop anyone, because such is the evil, but free will of people. But more than that, there are laws of nature, the law of this world, and we, living in this world, fall under the influence of these laws. Therefore, something comes into our lives according to our will, something according to the good or evil will of other people, somewhere we obey the laws of the universe, but in both cases, and in the third case, there is a place for God’s providence. It is probably impossible to somehow draw such a clear line in this kaleidoscope and say where God’s providence is and where it is not! True, some people solve this problem for themselves in the following way: they say something like this: if something came into my life, something that does not depend either on my will or on the will of other people, but completely unexpectedly, as if unpredictable, something so unusual. You know, as the late Metropolitan Nikodim said: “Everything that is unexpected is from God.” And in fact, of course, it is very difficult to disagree with this, but still, I would not limit God’s providence only to some special events in our lives. We believe that the Lord guides a person through life through His providence, without violating human freedom, but it is impossible to say what the mechanism for combining these seemingly incompatible realities is.

–K: You said that many people refuse to recognize God’s providence because they do not see God’s reasonable action in the world, but it is impossible to disagree with this, because there is a lot of suffering in the world, people do what they want, they commit crimes and the Lord does not stops. Others, going through trials, ask God for help, but the Lord does not often hear them, and if he does, he only intensifies these trials. How to combine God's love for his creation, God's providence for the world with the reality that is happening around us?

A: As for the goodness of God and the evil that is present in the world, two considerations are usually expressed about this. The first is that evil can only be destroyed with its carrier, that is, with man, and God, precisely by his goodness, wants man’s correction, his repentance, and not his death. You and I address God as our father – “Our Father”, “Our Father”. We do not call God a judge, a prosecutor, law or justice, we call him father. And so, if we transfer our relationship with God to intra-family relationships, if a child has done something wrong before his father, then what - the father immediately beats him, destroys him? Even if the child is sick, even if the child spreads evil around him, even if this child has grown up and become a criminal. Yes, society will condemn him, the law will condemn him, but his father will still love him, because the father does not treat his child from the position of legal law, not even from the position of the law of justice, he treats him from the position of the law of love. The same thing happens in our relationship with God. Actually, why the Lord tolerates evil, and until what point this will continue, He explained quite clearly when He told the parable of the wheat and the tares. Well, the second consideration: since there is evil in the world, the Lord turns it around for the sake of saving people, for correcting lost people, sinful people and for strengthening faith and testing the righteous. This was well noted by Goethe in the phrase of Mephistopheles, in the famous phrase: “I am part of that force that always wants evil, but always does good.” The devil sows evil, but the Lord uses this evil as a bitter medicine to save people and thereby turns evil into good.
But, in general, this question that you asked me, I probably will not be mistaken if I say that from an apologetic point of view, this is, of course, the most difficult question. There is an attempt in theology to resolve this issue, which is called “Theodicy,” which means “justification of God.” This name may also seem strange to us, because we are looking for justification from God, and here we are talking about the fact that God must be justified. God, indeed, sometimes has to be justified, but I’ll give you an example that is probably well known to every priest. For example, a mother comes to church and says that her child has died. So she approaches the priest and asks him approximately the following set of questions: “What is this? For what? Why? Why is she or her child worse than others, and what crime did they commit? How can one even understand this action of God, who took her child away from her and doomed her to such suffering, ruined her life?” The priest, of course, is trying to somehow console this person, although it is impossible to talk about any consolation here, but at the same time he is trying to somehow protect God, justify His actions, so that this person does not lose faith. In other words, this is an attempt to reconcile all the contradictions that you mentioned in your question: that God really is love, that his providence is aimed at the good of people. All these provisions are subject to very serious doubts, because absolutely every person, with very varying degrees of church involvement and generally religious feeling, asked similar questions: what if God loves the world so much that he did not spare Himself for the sake of saving this world and, if He is omnipotent, then where is the manifestation of this omnipotence and love in our world. But sometimes completely innocent people go through such a crucible of suffering that simply because of the horror of what is happening, it is not possible to accept it as the good will of God, as some kind of good. And then people correlate what happened and God’s providence, they are left with few options for an answer. Either God really doesn’t care about us and all the stories about his love are greatly exaggerated, or He does not have omnipotence, He is simply forced to watch powerlessly as evil reigns in the world. Or He doesn’t exist at all, and these are all fables. We find the answer about the suffering of the innocent, about the suffering of the righteous, in the New Testament, in the suffering in the death of the innocent Christ. If a person defines eternal salvation for himself as the goal of his life, if he goes to this goal through righteousness and the path of holiness, then it will be the way of the cross, only the way of the cross, there is no way around it! This will be a narrow path and a narrow gate leading to the Kingdom of God. And the Lord does not deceive anyone, He does not give any false promises! Anyone who has read the Gospel should lose all illusions about what it means to follow Christ. The Lord says quite clearly that if you want to follow me, then forget about yourself, take up your cross and follow Me. And the more righteous a person is, the stronger his spiritual life, the heavier this cross will be for him. And if a person meaningfully accepts the Sacrament of Baptism, then he must understand that he thereby expresses a desire to share the earthly fate of Christ. Not only His eternity, not only His Resurrection, but His earthly destiny. Well, everyone knows well how the Lord ended His life.

We find a more detailed definition of providence in the “Long Christian Catechism” of St. Philaret of Moscow:

“The providence of God is the constant action of the omnipotence, wisdom and goodness of God, by which God preserves the existence and strength of creatures, directs them to good goals, helps every good, and stops the evil that arises through removal from good and turns it to good consequences.”

1. God's providence covers the entire universe

“The destinies of God are everything that happens in the universe. Everything that happens is accomplished as a result of the judgment and determination of God. Nothing is or can be done secretly from God and independent of Him.

God rules the universe; He controls the life of every person in all its details. Such management, which is included in the most petty, seemingly insignificant conditions of existence of creatures, corresponds to the infinite perfection of the properties of God. The law of such management is read in nature, read in the public and private life of people, and read in the Holy Scriptures. Are not two birds, said the Savior, valued by one assar, and not a single one of them falls to the ground without your Father? To you, the close and faithful servants of God, all the chief powers are counted (Matthew 10, 29, 30). I believe the all-holy words! I cannot help but believe them: they accurately depict the perfection of my God. From your presence, my Lord, my destiny will come (Ps. 16:2)! I belong entirely to you! My life and death are hourly in Your hands! You participate in all my affairs, in all my circumstances: You will help me to please You; You are patient with me in the face of my willful, sinful, and insane actions. Your right hand constantly guides me on Your path!”

Rev. John of Damascus:

God provides for all creation, showing us benefits and admonishing us through every creation, even through the demons themselves, as can be seen from what happened with Job and the pigs.

2. The incomprehensibility of fishing

The Holy Apostle Paul speaks of the incomprehensibility of God’s providence:

"Oh, the depth of the wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His destinies and unsearchable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or who has given Him in advance that He should repay? For all things are from Him, by Him and to Him"
(Rom. 11:33-36).

Rev. John of Damascus writes in “An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith”:

“It should be borne in mind that there are many paths of divine Providence, and they can neither be expressed in words nor comprehended by the mind.”

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) says that only a person who has acquired spiritual vision, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit, can even remotely understand the action of providence, as well as understand its incomprehensibility:

“The vision of God’s destinies is a spiritual vision. The mind of a Christian who strives correctly is raised by Divine grace, in due time, to this vision. The heart sympathizes with the spiritual vision of the mind with a spiritual, holy sensation, with which it is infused, as if with a sweet and fragrant drink, pouring into it nourishment, courage, and joy. I look into Your destinies, my Lord: Your destinies are a vast abyss (Ps. 35:7). Neither the human mind nor the angelic mind can explore their depth, just as our sensory eye cannot discern the vaults of the sky hiding behind its transparent, boundless blue.”

They say that Abba Anthony, being once perplexed by the depth of God's Economy (government of the world) and God's judgments, prayed and said; "God! Why do some people reach old age and a state of weakness, while others die in childhood and live little? Why are some poor and others rich? Why do tyrants and villains prosper and have an abundance of earthly blessings, while the righteous are oppressed by adversity and poverty? He thought for a long time, and a voice came to him: “Antony! Pay attention to yourself and do not subject yourself to the study of God’s fate, because this is harmful to your soul.”
(Alphabetical Patericon)

Another ancient hermit was shown with vivid examples the incomprehensibility of God’s providence and the fact that, although the ways of God’s providence are inscrutable, they are always beneficial for us and always lead to good consequences.

One hermit asked God to make him understand the ways of His providence, and imposed a fast on himself. However, God did not reveal to him what he wanted to know. The monk still did not stop praying, and finally the Lord brought him to his senses. When he went to an old man living far away from him, an Angel appeared to him in the form of a monk and offered to be his companion. The hermit was very happy with the offer, and both went together. When the day turned to evening, they stopped for the night with one pious man, and he received them with such honor that he even offered food on a silver platter. But what a surprise! Immediately after the meal, the Angel took the dish and threw it into the sea. The elder was perplexed, but did not say anything. They went further and the next day stayed with another, also pious man, and this one also received them with joy, and washed their feet, and showed them every kind of attention. But again trouble! When the hermit and his companion began to prepare for the journey, the one who received them brought his young son to them to bless him. But, instead of blessing, the Angel, touching the boy, took his soul. Neither the old man, out of horror, nor the father, out of despair, could utter a word, and the old man ran out, and his companion, not lagging behind, followed him. On the third day of their journey, they had nowhere to stay except one dilapidated house abandoned by everyone, and they took refuge in it. The elder sat down to taste the food, and his companion, to his amazement, again began a strange thing. He began to destroy the house and, having destroyed it, began to build it again. Seeing this, the elder could not stand it: “What are you: a demon or an Angel? What are you doing?” he said to his companion angrily. "Yes, what am I doing?" - he objected. "Like what?" - continued the elder, - “on the third day you took the dish from a good man and threw it into the sea; yesterday you took the life of a boy, and today, why did you destroy and begin to build this house again?” Then the Angel said to him: “Don’t be surprised, elder, at this and don’t be offended about me, but listen to what I tell you. The first man who accepted us really acts in everything pleasing to God; but the dish that I threw away was acquired by him in unrighteousness; and therefore I abandoned him so that he would not destroy his reward through him. The second husband is also pleasing to God, but if his young son had grown up, then he would have been a terrible villain; that’s why I took his soul, for the good of his father, so that he too would be saved.” “Well, what were you doing here?” asked the elder. The angel continued: “The owner of this house was an immoral man and for this reason he became poor and went into hiding. His grandfather, having built this house, hid gold in the wall, and some people know about it. That’s why I ruined it, so that from now on no one would look here.” gold and did not perish through it." The angel concluded his speech like this: “Return, elder, to your cell and do not be tormented without your mind; for thus says the Holy Spirit: the judgments of the Lord are many in depth, untested and unknown to man; therefore, do not try them - it will not benefit you.” ". The angel then became invisible, and the amazed old man repented of his error, and then told everyone what had happened to him.
(Prologue in teachings)

St. John of Tobolsk, consoling the suffering, writes that in the future life everything incomprehensible will be clarified:

“Do not be surprised that the judgments of God are mysterious and incomprehensible: at the second coming of Christ, on the terrible day of judgment, the whole life of every person will appear as in a mirror; Every reason why God's Providence arranged this or that incident, and why it did it, will become clear everywhere: in all kingdoms, cities, families and with every person. Everything will open up. It will be revealed how merciful the Lord was to those who sinned... it will be revealed to what extent the image of God's world government was consistent with His glory and righteousness, and how decent and beneficial it was for all creatures.

In our earthly life we ​​will never comprehend many things with our minds. It is enough for us to know, be convinced and undoubtedly believe that God is not unjust, and on the last day of judgment there will not be any of the defendants who would say anything other than the words to the Lord, except the words: “Thou art righteous, O Lord, and thy judgments are just” ( Ps. 118, 137).

3. Favor and permission

The Holy Fathers teach that God’s providence acts as God’s good will and permission.

So, Rev. John of Damascus writes:

“What depends on Providence happens either by the good will of God or by permission. By the grace of God, what is undeniably good happens. By permission, that which is not indisputably good. Thus, God often allows a righteous person to fall into misfortune in order to show others the virtue hidden in him: this was the case, for example, with Job.

...It should be borne in mind that the choice of affairs is in our power, but their outcome depends on God. Moreover, the outcome of good deeds depends on divine assistance, for God, according to His foreknowledge, righteously assists those who, according to a right conscience, choose what is good. The outcome of bad deeds depends on divine permission, on the fact that God, again according to His foreknowledge, righteously leaves a person, leaving him to his own strength.

...Abandonment of a person by God is of two types: one saving and admonishing, the other meaning final rejection. Saving and admonishing abandonment occurs either for the correction, salvation and glory of the sufferer, or for arousing others to zeal and imitation, or for the glory of God. Complete abandonment occurs when a person, despite the fact that God has done everything for his salvation, remains, of his own free will, insensitive and unhealed, or, better said, incurable. Then he surrenders to final destruction, like Judas. May God protect us and deliver us from such abandonment.”

Abba Dorotheus writes about admonishing abandonment:

“When someone takes the trouble to cleanse it of all the passions we mentioned and tries to acquire all the virtues, then he must always resort to the mercy of God and to the protection of God, so as not to be abandoned to him and not to perish. For as we said about the seed, that even after that , how it sprouts, grows and bears fruit, if from time to time the rain does not water it, it dries up and dies, so it happens with a person: and after so much has been accomplished, if God removes His cover from him even for a short time and leaves him , then he perishes. But God leaves a person when he does something against his dispensation, for example, if someone was reverent and deviated into an disorderly life, or was humble and becomes insolent. when he lives disorderly, or arrogant, when he is proud, how much does He leave the reverent when he does disorderly, and the humble when he becomes proud: this means sin against one’s own dispensation, and from this comes abandonment.”.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) explains:

“One thing is done according to the will of God; the other is done by God’s permission; everything that happens is done according to the judgment and determination of God. For this reason, the destinies of God are often called in Scripture the judgment of God. God's judgment is always righteous; “Thou art righteous, O Lord,” says the Prophet, “and rule Thy judgments (Ps. 119, 137).”

Rev. Isaac the Syrian:

“A good thought does not sink into the heart if it is not from Divine grace; an evil thought does not approach the soul, except for temptation and testing. A person who has reached the point of knowing the extent of his weakness has achieved the perfection of humility. The heart is attracted to the gifts of God , aroused to unceasing thanksgiving, the temptation brings to the soul a murmuring thought, constantly aroused in the heart. The Lord tolerates all sorts of human infirmities, but He does not tolerate a person who is always grumbling, and the soul, far from any enlightenment of knowledge, gives in to such (murmuring). ) thoughts. The lips that always give thanks receive blessings from God; and if the heart remains in gratitude, grace descends into it. But conceit precedes punishment, and the one who exalts himself in the goodness of his deeds is allowed to fall into fornication. he who exalts himself in his wisdom is allowed to fall into the dark nets of ignorance.

A person, far from any remembrance of God, carries in his heart a thought against his neighbor, troubled by an evil memory. Whoever, with the remembrance of God, honors every person, he, at the behest of God, secretly finds help for himself from every person. He who defends the offended finds God as his champion. He who stretches out his hand to help his neighbor receives God’s arm to help himself.” (Word 86)

“Everything is from God, both good and sorrowful, and unworthy; but one is by good will, the other by economy, the third by permission. And by good will - when we live virtuously, for it pleases God that we lead a sinless life, live virtuously and piously. According to the economy, when, falling into mistakes and sinning, we are brought to reason; but by permission, when even those admonished we do not convert.”

St. John of Tobolsk showing what God allows, explains the difference between imaginary evil and real evil:

“It is necessary to distinguish between two types of allowed evils. The first kind of evil, which embraces various griefs, hardships, illnesses, insults or dishonor (reduction into poverty, imprisonment, exile, exile), death - all this cannot even be called evil in the narrow sense, but only a bitter medicine, sent to us from God for the spiritual healing of us. The second kind of evil, called evil in the proper sense, is our sins, transgressions of God’s commandments. God allows the first kind of evil according to His desire, either as execution for the wicked, or as a measure of correction for sons and daughters. About evil of the second kind, i.e. About sins, it cannot be said that God desires their commission, but only allows it.

...sin is not something real, but is only a ghostly opposite to true existence. Sin exists due to the imperfection, lies and deceit of the rationally free beings created by God who disobey God; That is why sin originally occurred and now occurs against the will of God, not from God, however, by His permission. The reason for allowing sin is hidden for the time being in the mystery of God’s perfect and infallible world government, or His providence. God is completely aware of the whole future, and He can easily not allow the sin He hates, but He allows it, wanting to bring good out of evil, right out of wrong, for the admonition and correction of people, so that they can see what consequences sin entails in relation to the sinner, and in relation to his neighbors, to society.”

Saint John of Tobolsk explains why God allows sin:

“The infinite goodness of God would never have allowed such evil iniquities to exist on earth, if from here it had not produced the greatest benefits and had not turned what was done out of malice into salvation. God allowed brotherly envy to multiply against the innocent Joseph, but for what good did he allow it? Is it not to save not only his parents, brothers and relatives, but also all of Egypt from starvation? God allowed the wicked Saul to embitter the meek, gentle David in every possible way, but was it not for the benefit of David himself and the entire kingdom of Israel? Yes, for the greatest benefit not only of them, but of the entire human race, through the descendant of David, Christ our Savior. ... through God's permission, the envious high priests, Pharisees and Jewish elders, out of envy, betrayed the Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, to crucifixion, and this permission turned into the salvation of the entire human race? Thus, from every allowance, the greatest riches of the glory of God and His benefits to each person and the entire human race are revealed to us.”

4. God would never have allowed evil if He had not been so strong and good as to produce a good consequence out of every evil deed.
God turns everything for good - even our sins

Thus, illness, poverty, any suffering that, by God’s permission, touches a person can help him overcome pride and other passions, learn compassion, see and love true values. The physical blindness that befell the Apostle Paul on his way to Damascus led him to spiritual insight. Seventeen residents of Jerusalem who died during the fall of the Tower of Siloam, by God's providence, served as a reason for repentance for many other sinners. Sometimes the suffering of an innocent person can serve to benefit another. The Evangelical man born blind, for whose misfortune even his parents were not to blame, served to glorify the Savior Himself and to strengthen faith in those people who witnessed the miraculous healing. The sufferings of the righteous contribute to their spiritual improvement and provide an invaluable example of love for God, patience and righteousness for the whole world. The fact that God's providence is always perfect and always good, no matter what may seem to us in our ignorance, is testified by the Holy Scriptures in the words of the righteous Job, and it is impossible to imagine a higher and more piercing testimony of a sufferer than this. It is enough to read his words before and after he saw God with his spiritual eyes to understand that the height of God’s omnipotence, His absolute truth, goodness and love for all creation was revealed to the righteous:

"...Job said: even now my speech is bitter: my sufferings are heavier than my groans. Oh, that I knew where to find Him, and could come to His throne! I would lay my case before Him and fill my lips excuses; I would know the words with which He would answer me, and I would understand what He would say to me... But let Him test me; and did not shy away (Job 23, 1-5, 10-11)

"And Job answered the Lord and said: ... So, I spoke about things that I did not understand, about things that were wonderful to me, which I did not know. Listen, I cried, and I will speak, and what I will ask of You, explain to me. I have heard of You with the ear of the ear; now my eyes see You; therefore I renounce and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42, 1-6)

St. John of Tobolsk writes about how God transforms evil into good:

“For Joseph, bonds and prison serve to honor and to his greatest glory; brotherly envy of him brought him more benefit than the goodwill of the whole world; Saul's malice brought David the royal crown; the den of lions brought Daniel into honor and glory, such as the kings of the earth had never achieved; Christ entered heaven from the cross together with the repentant thief, and from the Mount of Olives ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God the Father.”

Venerable Paisiy Svyatogorets:

“God often allows something to happen for the benefit of many people. He never does only good, but three or four good things together. And He never allows evil to happen unless a lot of good comes from it.”

About this St. John Chrysostom reasons like this:

"... the wise providence God turns the calamitous adventures of His friends into joyful events. Often the insult inflicted on us brings us great prosperity; many fell, and through his fall he ascended to something better for himself. God's Providence, to achieve the goals predetermined by Him, uses not only good actions, but also the fall. Have you recognized the fate of Joseph? Destroy the malice of his brothers, remove their envy, destroy the meeting they made to kill him, and you will destroy everything that contributed to the preservation of all of Egypt... Do you want to trace it? the incomprehensible mystery of the redemption of the entire human race by Christ? - destroy the love of money in the heart of Judas Iscariot, the envy of Christ the Savior among the Jews: at the same time you would remove the salvation of the whole world, the blood and death of Christ, eradicate the devils - pious deeds, victories and victories would immediately decrease greatly. the rewards received for them. - Destroy the tormentors - where will the holy martyrs come from? These are the statutes of God’s Providence: to achieve good not only through the virtuous, but also through evil people and even through the devils themselves. The sale of Joseph by his brothers was, indeed, arranged by God, but the very commission of it, covered with the malice of the brethren, was a matter of their evil will.”

Bl. Augustine: “God recognized it as better to turn evil into good than not to allow evil at all, because, being all-good, He would in no way allow evil in His deeds if He were not so omnipotent and good that He could not produce good from evil , Kind".

Rev. John of Damascus writes:

“It should be borne in mind that God, first of all, wants everyone to be saved and to achieve His Kingdom. In fact, as good, He created us not to punish, but so that we could be partakers of His goodness. ... all sorrowful events, if people accept them with gratitude, are sent to them for their salvation and, without a doubt, benefit them.

Sometimes God allows something strange in order to accomplish something great and wondrous through an apparently incongruous action; Thus, the salvation of people was achieved through the cross. In some cases, God allows a holy person to suffer grievously, so that the saint does not fall away from the right conscience or he does not fall into pride because of the power and grace given to him; so it was with Paul.

For a while, God leaves a person to correct another, so that others, looking at him, will be corrected; so it was with Lazarus and the rich man. In fact, seeing others suffer naturally makes us humble. God leaves one person for the glory of another, and not for his or his parents’ sins; so the man blind from birth was blind to the glory of the Son of man. God also allows someone to suffer in order to arouse jealousy in another, so that, seeing how the glory of the victim has been magnified, others may fearlessly suffer in the hope of future glory, because of the desire for future benefits, so it was with the martyrs.

Sometimes God allows a person to commit a shameful act to correct another, even worse passion. Thus, let us assume that someone is exalted in his virtues and righteousness; God allows such a person to fall into fornication, so that through this fall he will come to the consciousness of his weakness, humble himself and come and confess to the Lord.”

P rep. Macarius of Optina wrote, explaining to his spiritual children the action of providence:

“Not only is God’s providence for us when we live in abundance in everything, but we must believe that even in the scarcity of everything, His fatherly love provides for our salvation. There is no doubt that He can enrich everyone, but when He sees that abundance does not benefit, but harms the soul, He takes it away and wants to make up for our previous shortcomings with patience and gratitude.

You write about the diseases that visited your monastery, and about the death of livestock. All this is painful and regrettable, but who can know the destinies of God? He punishes us, as the Father who loves his children, seeking our salvation, takes away temporary good things, but we are worthy of eternal ones, otherwise we, as we abound in everything, then we give ourselves over to passions, forgetting God, who created us and provides for us.

We must thank the Lord in everything and see His wonderful and expedient providence for us in everything; He makes up for the lack of our deeds either with illnesses or sorrows, and thus will not allow us to rise above others, but so that, seeing our weaknesses, we consider ourselves the last of all, which we learn a lot about in books, but do not touch with our deeds or fingers.
The works of God are wondrous and incomprehensible to our darkened mind, but as much as possible, we learn from Scripture and from experiences before our eyes that the Lord sends illnesses, sorrows, deprivations, famines, wars, rebellions, either punishing for sins, or warning so that did not fall into these, but tests the faith of others. So, we must revere His all-wise providence and thank Him for all His ineffable mercy towards us.”

O. Valentin Sventsitsky, answering the question: “How is Divine Providence expressed when God allows evil deeds?” - says: “The fact is that the Lord providentially helps to survive them for the good of our salvation.”

St. John of Tobolsk:

“Nothing contrary to us can happen to us without the will or permission of God: neither the devil nor any of the people can harm us if God does not allow. We must firmly believe that although the most serious disasters befall us by order of God, as the Supreme King, they are sent to us from the most merciful Father for our benefit, for our admonition and correction, for our untruths and sins. Therefore, no one else but ourselves can harm us.

God turns all everyday misfortunes to our benefit and to our good; He allows the very fall of sin to achieve and bring to the end the highest, incomprehensible, mysterious works of His Divine rule. For both doing good deeds and allowing evil deeds is a property that exclusively belongs to Divine Providence alone. Truly, God would never have allowed evil if He were not so strong and good as to produce a good consequence from every evil deed. ... The highest God is also the wisest artist, transforming every evil action into a cause to produce the best consequences, just as gold is mined from a rough mass. All things work for the good of those who love God (Rom. 8:28): Magdalene’s sins served as a reason for many to correct themselves; the fall of Petrovo is an example of true repentance for countless people; Thomas's unbelief confirmed many in the truth of the resurrection of Christ. From here the greatest Divine glory is revealed: “Reap where you did not sow.” God did not sow sins, but from them he gathers a rich harvest of virtues. Truly God flows honey from the stone, and oil from the hard stone, when he produces the most beneficial consequences from the greatest atrocities.

Let us not forget that God creates some good out of every evil. What was sadder than the fall of Adam and Eve and the entire human race? However, God restored them in such a way that the present position of a Christian is higher than Adam’s heavenly position. Christ's death on the cross is a temptation for the Jews, and madness for the Greeks; however, it became the salvation of the whole world, to all who were called, honor and glory, and the acquisition of eternal blessed life (1 Cor. 1:23).”

5. How to think about illnesses and misfortunes

From the patristic teaching on providence it follows that all misfortunes and illnesses must be accepted as medicines sent to us from God for our salvation.

St. John of Tobolsk says that all misfortunes and disasters occur according to the will of God:

“Everything in the world, even seemingly evil (except sin), happens according to the will of God. Theologians explain it this way. The beginning of evil (in the proper sense) is sin. Every sin contains: 1) the cause that produces it, and 2) its inevitable consequences - correction by punishment. The cause of sin is the deceit or self-will of a proud sinner; punishments in general (both corrections and executions), being the bitter consequences of their cause, occur according to the will of God, as the cause not of sin, but of correction or destruction of it. So: if we remove from the concept of sin its cause - deceit and self-will, then there will not be a single one of its bitter or evil consequences that would not occur according to the will of God or would be displeasing to Him. Both the sinful sorrows of a private person and the worldly, usually called natural, disasters, such as hunger strikes, droughts, pestilences and the like, often not directly related to the sin of a private person, occur by the will of God. Therefore, all human disasters and sorrows positively occur according to the will of God for the sake of achieving the righteous goals of God’s providence; Sin alone is disgusting to God (just as evil is contrary to good, or a lie is contrary to truth), but is allowed by God for the sake of non-violation of personal human will, or his freedom.

…In the same way, God’s Providence is alert for us, and watches unfailingly, so that even our slightest bodily constraints do not go unnoticed by Himself. As a result of this, each of us, in the event of bodily adversity, should reason like this: this illness or other adversity - whether it occurred from my carelessness, or from human malice, or from something else - in any case, it did not happen without God's Providence , which determined it according to my strengths, so that its beginning, its severity (weakening or strengthening) depends on Him. Likewise, the method of healing and healing depends on the Providence of God. It admonishes the doctor and points out the means, or counteracts everything, for both good and bad, life and death, poverty and wealth are from the Lord (Sirach. XI, 14). Likewise, in all the adventures that happen to us, we must reason that they were foreseen and allowed by God.

It is very prudent and pious to reason that every evil, misfortune or misfortune is for us a saving punishment sent to us from above, but God is not the cause of our guilt, i.e. sin, which inevitably entails punishment according to the truth of God.”

The words of the saint testify to the action of God's providence the prophet of God Jeremiah, spoken by him on behalf of God in the Old Testament. “Sometimes I will say about a nation or a kingdom,” says the Lord God, “that I will uproot, crush and destroy it, but if this people, against whom I have spoken this, turns from their evil deeds, I will put aside the evil that I have thought.” do to him. Sometimes I will say about some people or kingdom that I will establish and establish it, but if he does evil in my sight and does not obey my voice, I will cancel the good with which I wanted to bless him."
(Jeremiah 18:7-10).

St. Ambrose of Optina spoke about the action of God's providence in human life:

“God does not create a cross for a person, that is, cleansing mental and physical suffering. And no matter how heavy the cross may be for another person, which he bears in life, yet the tree from which it is made always grows on the soil of his hearts.
When a person walks the straight path, there is no cross for him. But when he retreats from him and begins to rush first in one direction, then in the other, then different circumstances appear that push him again onto the straight path. These shocks constitute a cross for a person. Of course, they are different, who needs which one.”

6. The evil caused to us by people is not outside the will of God

The Holy Fathers teach that we must accept the insults inflicted on us by people as saving medicines sent from God, and not blame or hate those who offend us, but, on the contrary, see in them our benefactors, showing us our passions and weaknesses so that we can correct ourselves. .

St. John of Tobolsk:

To calm ourselves down when causing offense, we know only one sure way: when someone has offended or insulted you, do not pay attention to the anger of the offender, but turn to the just God who allowed your opponent to offend you, and do not repay him with evil for the evil done to you : for it was allowed by God to achieve good and fair goals, although unknown to you at the time. All the holy saints of God adhered to this custom: they did not search for who had offended them and for what, but always turned their hearts to God, humbly recognizing the justice of God’s allowance; and therefore they considered the insults inflicted on them as benefits for themselves, and their opponents as benefactors, saying: these are our true benefactors.

Rev. Macarius of Optina:

We see and undoubtedly believe that the providence of God, caring for every creature, and at the same time for us, arranges it to be this way for our spiritual benefit, leading us away from something unprofitable or tempting our faith, while punishing others for sins, and with submission to His will we bear the burden imposed on us by His justice. People who cause us sorrow should be revered as the instrument with which God acts in the matter of our salvation, and we should pray for them. You cannot find consolation for yourself by any other means, and even more so when you demand from people that they love you, but, looking through the veil of pride, do not blame yourself...

I don’t know why you are afraid of persecution from a famous person? Can anyone insult you if God does not allow it? And when something happens, we must accept it with submission to the will of God, humble ourselves and consider those who insult us as instruments of God’s providence: for this the Lord will deliver us from their hands.

Rev. Lev Optinsky:

Where have you left the providence of God, which cares about everyone, and especially about you, and arranges everything for the good, and through permissive cases gives us a means to recognize our passions and eradicate them, and you still blame people.

St. John of Tobolsk:

“... all the saints attributed everything that they encountered in life, pleasant or unpleasant, to the will, to the action of God, because they did not pay attention to the sins of others, but viewed all human actions as God’s gift or God’s allowance for their sins . The saints reasoned this way: the all-good God would never have allowed anything evil if He did not know that from there He would produce numerous and great benefits.

Many are deceived, out of their extreme ignorance, thinking that only evil arising from natural causes (namely: floods, earthquakes, crop failures, adverse atmospheric phenomena, epidemic diseases, sudden death, etc.) occurs by the will of God; for for the most part such misfortunes have no direct relation to sins. But malicious acts arising from the illegal intent of man, from untruth (such as: abusive words, ridicule, deception, forgery, theft, insults by action, robberies, robberies, murders, etc.), happen, in the opinion of the above-mentioned people, regardless from the will of God and His providence, but solely due to human malice and the corrupted human will, which itself causes and inflicts all kinds of evil on its neighbors. And therefore, not only in the past, long ago, but also in the present times, complaints are often heard: “The scarcity of food and the necessary means for life did not come from God, but from the covetous.” These complaints are the complaints of people who do not know God: they are not worthy of a Christian.
If God is not the beginning of our moral fall (which alone is true evil) and cannot be: “For His eye is pure to see no evil” (Habak. I, 13), and “love righteousness and hate iniquity” ( Ps. XLIV, 8), it is quite true that all disasters arising from secondary causes... all according to the will of God, are sent down by His strong right hand, according to His providence and providence. Beloved! God directed his hand to strike you; God has moved the tongue of the offender or slanderer to mock or slander you; God has given the wicked the power to overthrow you. God Himself, through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, confirms this, saying: “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me; I girded you, although you did not know Me... I form light and create darkness, I make peace and bring about disasters; I, Lord, I do all this" (Isa. 45: 5, 7). The prophet Amos confirms this more clearly: "Is there any disaster in a city that the Lord would not allow" (Amos 3: 6)? as if to say: there is not a single disaster that was not according to the will of God, which allows evil intent, but indicates the method and gives strength to bring it into execution.

So God, meaning to punish King David for the sin of his adultery with Uriah’s wife and for the murder of Uriah himself, by the sin of incest of his own son with his wife, says to David through the prophet Nathan: “Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your house, and I will take your wives before your eyes, and I will give them to your neighbor (Absalom), and he will sleep with your wives before this sun. You have done it secretly (i.e. adultery and murder), but I will do this (i.e. Absalom’s incest). before all Israel and before the sun" (2 Kings 12, 11, 12). Bl. expressed this idea very well. Augustine, saying: “In this way God corrects good people through evil ones.”

That devastating wars and other misfortunes do not occur without the will of God is clear (as we indicated earlier); but it does not follow from this that we should neither arm ourselves against our enemies nor resort to healing our illnesses, considering this to be opposition to the will of God. Let us explain this using the example of a disease: no matter what the immediate reason it began, there is no doubt (as noted above) that it was the will of God. However, the patient does not know God’s intention about the duration of his illness, and therefore the patient is not prohibited from resorting to various means of healing himself from the disease. And when, after using many healing remedies, he no longer receives recovery, he can be sure that it is God’s will that he endure a very long and severe illness. So humbly reason, every sick brother, that God wants to keep you still in your illness. But since you do not know whether God intends for you to suffer until death, you can without sin resort to means of healing to obtain health or at least to alleviate the disease. The sinlessness of healing is also proven by the fact that if God does not want to restore your health, then He can deprive any remedy of its healing power. We should talk about enemies and wars in the same way.”

7. We must distinguish between man’s sin and his responsibility for his evil, and the good will of God

“You ask: “If someone killed an innocent person, did he act justly or unjustly?”
...the murderer committed an unjust deed that requires execution; but God’s permission is righteous and wise for a righteous reason, but hidden from us until time.”
Bl. considers this in a similar way. Augustine dealt with the murder of Christ our Savior. “Judas, the lawless traitor of Christ,” says Augustine, “and the persecutors of Christ - all the lawless, all the wicked, all the unrighteous, all the lost; however, the Father did not spare His Son, but betrayed Him (allowed Him to be killed) for the salvation of us all.” This is the mysterious reason for God’s permission for the murder of His Only Begotten Son by lawbreakers - a reason that was inexplicable at that time. Do not be surprised that God allows evil to happen: He allows it according to His most righteous judgment, He allows it in measure, number and weight. He has no lies.”

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov):

“The destinies and actions of God go their own way; human and demonic actions also go their own way. Crimes and atrocities do not cease to be crimes and atrocities in relation to their agents, even if those who commit evil with evil intentions together are only instruments of the will of God. The latter is a consequence of the unlimited wisdom of God, the unlimited power of God, due to which creatures, acting according to their free will, together remain invariably in the power of the Creator, without understanding it, fulfill the will of the Creator, without knowing it.”

St. John Chrysostom talks about it like this:

“If it is written that Christ will suffer like this, then why is Judas condemned? He fulfilled what is written. But he did it with the wrong thought, but out of malice. If you do not pay attention to intentions, then you will free the devil from guilt. But no, no! Both of them are worthy of countless torments, although the universe was saved. It was not the betrayal of Judas that brought salvation to us, but the wisdom of Christ, which wonderfully turned the atrocities of others to our advantage. What if, you ask, if Judas did? If he had not been betrayed, would not another have betrayed him? What does this have to do with the present subject? You say that if Christ was to be crucified, then it had to be done by someone, if anyone, then of course; If everyone were good, then the construction of our salvation would not be completed! Let the All-Wise Himself know how to arrange our salvation, even if it were so, because His wisdom is great and incomprehensible. whoever did not think that Judas was a servant of the economy, Christ calls him a most unfortunate man.”

8. God does not allow unbearable temptations

According to church teaching, the active Divine will, which allows evil, always stops the action of the evil will on us, through which an unbearable temptation is created. Divine Providence allows evil only because it can be experienced for the benefit of our salvation and therefore does not allow “unbearable” evil. If evil is allowed by God, this always means that it is feasible for our life, for our moral task. And therefore, every person who has not experienced it for the good sins, and for this he himself is responsible before God. The Church does not know “overwhelming temptations.” The word of God says directly: “...God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able...” (1 Cor. 10:13).

9. Randomness

The Orthodox understanding of God's providence excludes the existence of chance.
Everything in a person’s life does not happen by chance, but is sent to us from God, as the Apostle said: “Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov):

There is no blind chance! God rules the world, and everything that happens in heaven and under heaven is done according to the judgment of the all-wise and omnipotent God, incomprehensible in His wisdom and omnipotence, incomprehensible in His governance.

Rev. Joseph Optinsky:

“If your sister is prudent, then she should always remember the wise proverb: “Live not as you want, but as God commands.” How circumstances have worked out is how we should live, because the circumstances around us are arranged not simply by chance, as many of our modern, new-fangled wise men think, but everything is done to us by the providence of God, constantly caring for our spiritual salvation.”

By word O. Valentin Sventsitsky, Orthodox “faith in Providence provides a true and solid foundation for our entire life. Without a feeling of Divine care for us in his heart, a person surrenders to the power of blind chaos without foundation, without order, without meaning.

...It’s completely different when the heart is illuminated by a feeling of Divine providence. Then a person feels a solid foundation above him. He knows that his life is in the hands of God and that this almighty hand leads him to salvation. He walks the path of life calmly, joyfully, with firm hope that the merciful Lord sees every step of his life, everything that happens to him, everything is for the “better”, everything has a higher meaning, everything is not “random”, but reasonable, for in everything, always and everywhere, the Divine will acts and His Divine Providence preserves.”

Rev. Ephraim the Syrian:

“In my youth, when I was still living in the world, an enemy attacked me; and at that time my youth almost assured me that what happens to us in life is accidental. Like a ship without a rudder, although the helmsman stands at the stern, it goes backwards, or does not move at all, and sometimes capsizes, if either an Angel or a person does not come to its aid: so it was with me. Carried away by the waves of seduction, I insensitively strove towards the threatening danger.

What does the goodness of God do to me? She did what, when I was traveling through inner Mesopotamia, I met a sheep shepherd. The shepherd asks me: “Where are you going, young man?” I answer: “wherever it happens.” And he says to me: “Follow me, because the day has come to evening.” What? I obeyed and stayed with him. In the middle of the night, wolves attacked and tore the sheep to pieces, because the shepherd was weak from wine and fell asleep. The owners of the flock came, laid the blame on me, and dragged me to trial. Appearing before the judge, I justified myself, saying how the matter was. Following me was brought someone caught in adultery with a woman, who ran away and hid herself. The judge, postponing the investigation of the case, sent both of us to prison together. In conclusion, we found one farmer brought there for murder. But he who was brought with me was not an adulterer, nor was the farmer a murderer, nor am I a predator of sheep. Meanwhile, a dead body was taken into custody in the case of a farmer, in my case - a shepherd, and in the case of an adulterer - the husband of a guilty woman; that’s why they were guarded in another house.

Having spent seven days there, on the 8th I saw in a dream that someone was telling me: “Be pious, and you will understand Providence; go over in your thoughts what you were thinking about and what you were doing, and you will know for yourself that these people are not suffering unjustly.” , but the guilty will not escape punishment."

So, having awakened, I began to reflect on the vision, and, searching for my offense, I found that, another time, while in this village, in the field in the middle of the night, with evil intentions, I drove the cow of one poor wanderer out of the corral. She was exhausted from the cold and from the fact that she was not idle; The beast overtook her there and tore her to pieces. How soon I told the prisoners with me my dream and guilt, and they, excited by my example, began to say - the villager that he saw a man drowning in the river, and although he could have helped him, he did not; and a city resident - that he joined the accusers of one woman slandered in adultery. And this, he said, was the widow; Her brothers, having brought this guilt upon her, deprived her of her father's inheritance, giving me a share of it, according to the condition.

At these stories I began to feel contrite; because there was some obvious reward in it. And if I were alone, I would say, perhaps, that all this happened to me simply as a human being. But the three of us are subject to the same participation. And now there is a fourth avenger who is not related to those who suffer vain offense and is not known to me; because neither I nor they have ever seen him; since I described to them the appearance of what appeared to me.

Having fallen asleep another time, I see that the same one is saying to me: “Tomorrow you will see those for whom you are offended, and liberation from the slander brought against you.” When I woke up, I was thoughtful. And they tell me: “Why are you sad?” I told them the reason. I was afraid of how the matter would end; and abandoned my previous thoughts that everything happens by chance. And they were also concerned along with me.

But when that night passed, we were brought to the mayor, and soon a report was presented to him about the five prisoners. Those who were with me, having received many beatings, left me and were taken to prison.

Then two were brought in to be the first to be judged. These were the brothers of a widow who was offended by the deprivation of her father's inheritance. One of them was found guilty of murder, the other of adultery. And having confessed to what they were caught in, they were brought by torture to confess to other atrocities. So the killer admitted that at one time, while engaged in trade in the city, he became acquainted and had a dishonest relationship with a woman. (This was the same one for which one of the prisoners with me was in prison). And to the question: “how did he escape?” said: “When they were lying in wait for us, the adulterer’s neighbor happened to come up to her through another entrance for one of his own needs. The woman gave him what he demanded, and when she had already lowered me out the window, as soon as she saw him, she began to ask him to let her out too. the same window for the reason that, as she said, the creditors wanted to detain her. When he intended to do this, he was caught by the woman’s husband and we ran away.” The mayor asked: “Where is this woman?” - He named her whereabouts, and was ordered to leave him in custody until the woman appeared. And the other, in addition to the adultery of which he was accused, confessed that he had also committed murder, for which the villager was kept with me. And he said that the murdered man was the husband of the woman he loved. “When,” he added, “he went out in the afternoon to inspect the field; I went up to him to greet him, immediately killed him and ran away. Someone was sleeping there out of great fatigue; the relatives of the murdered man, having heard about the murder, and not knowing, that this villager had no idea what had happened, they tied him up and sent him to court." - Who will give proof of this? “The wife of the murdered man,” he answered. The mayor asked: where is she? - He announced the place and name in another village, not far from the location of the other woman, and was immediately taken into prison.

The other three are also included. One was accused of burning a field of grain, and the others were accused of complicity in murder. Having received several blows and confessed nothing, they were taken to prison; because the judge heard that a successor had been appointed to him. And I went with them, without waiting for any decision to investigate the case. So we were all together. The newly arrived judge was from my homeland, but for a long time I did not know about him, what city he was from, or who he was. These days I had a lot of free time, and I made friends with other prisoners. And how my former comrades became complacent and told others about what we had; then everyone became attentive to me, as to a pious person. The brothers of that widow also heard and were surprised when they recognized her protector. Therefore, everyone began to ask me, in the hope that I would tell them something favorable. But, having spent many days there, I did not see what appeared to me in a dream. Finally I see him again, and he tells me that the last three, guilty of other crimes, are now being punished. I told them about this, and they confessed to a lie, namely, that they were in league with the kidnapper who killed a man for a vineyard adjacent to his property. “We,” they said, “testified in this case that the vineyard belongs to him for a debt, and that it was not he who killed this man, but the man himself, falling from a cliff, was killed to death.” One of them said that in anger he unintentionally pushed a man off the roof, and he fell and died.

After this, I again saw in a dream someone telling me: “The next day you will be freed, and others will fall under a fair trial; be a believer and proclaim the providence of God.”

The next day, the judge sat down in his judicial seat and began to interrogate all of us, and having learned to what extent the case had previously been brought, he demanded to see the women who had already been found in advance, and the accusers were given their rights. The mayor released the innocents, I mean the villager and the alleged adulterer, and subjected the women to torture, wanting to find out if they had participated in some other case.

And it turned out that one of them committed incendiary fire in anger at the one who betrayed her to the adulterer; Moreover, one person, running from a devastated field, was found not far from the place of the fire, and was taken as the culprit, and this was one of those kept with me. The judge, having interrogated him, found him, as was said, and released him as innocent. And another of those accused of adultery, being from the same village from which they were imprisoned for complicity in murder, confessed how it happened. “The murdered man,” she said, “spent the night in her house; he was a handsome man; she slept with him: and one of the widow’s brothers, namely, her adulterer, found him with her, hit him, killed him and threw him at the crossroads. When “People came running,” she continued, “two people were chasing the kidnapper of their goat; those in front, seeing them, thought that criminals were running and, seizing them, brought them to court as guilty.” The mayor asked: “What are their names, what kind are they and what are they like?” And having collected all the details about them, he found out the matter clearly and freed the innocent. There were five of them: a farmer, an imaginary adulterer and the last three. He ordered both brothers and the worthless women with them to be devoured by wild beasts.

He also orders me to be taken to the middle. Although the same tribe brought him closer to me, he nevertheless began to inquire about the matter in order, and tried to ask me how the matter of the sheep was. I told the truth, how everything happened. Recognizing me by voice and name, and ordering the shepherd to be flogged to show the truth, he freed me from the charge after almost seventy days. My acquaintance with the mayor came from the fact that my parents lived outside the city with those who raised this man; and from time to time I also lived with him.

After this, that same night I see my former husband, and he says to me: “Return to your place and repent of unrighteousness; making sure that there is an Eye that watches over everything.” And having made strong threats to me, he left; from then until now I have not seen him.

And I fell into thoughtfulness, returned home, cried a lot, but I don’t know if I appeased God. Why do I ask everyone to work with me in prayers, because my ulcer is incurable. I am not puffed up by visions, but wicked thoughts trouble me. And an Angel appeared to Pharaoh, announcing the future, but the prophecy did not save him from the sentence spoken over him. And Christ says to those who prophesied in His name: We know you not, you workers of iniquity (Luke 13:27). I know that I have truly seen and experienced, but my excessive reproach to God worries me. For whoever says that everything is spontaneous, denies the existence of the Divine. This is how I reasoned, and I’m not lying, I repented, and I don’t know if I’ve made amends for my sin; preached about God, but I don’t know whether this was accepted from me; I wrote about Providence, but I don’t understand whether this pleases God.

I see buildings and conclude about the creator: I see the world and know Providence; I see that a ship is sinking without a helmsman: I saw that human affairs end in nothing if God does not control them...” (Reverend Ephraim the Syrian. Self-reproof and confession)

10. Fate, rock

In pagan times in Rome and Greece, people believed in fate and fate. Many people still believe this.

The Orthodox understanding of God's providence does not agree with the opinion of St. Augustine and some Protestant theologians about the individual predestination of each person to one fate or another. God predestined all people to salvation and there is not a single person who was predestined to destruction. It is about predestination to salvation that the Apostle Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Romans: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son... And whom He predestined, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified. What can I say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:29-31).

Paul speaks even more clearly about predestination exclusively to salvation in the Epistle to the Ephesians: “He chose us... before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will. .. In him we became heirs, having been predestined to this purpose” (Eph. 1:4-5,11).

Scripture says that God wants all people to be saved:

“It pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
(1 Tim. 2:4)

He resolutely opposed the concepts of “fate” and “fate” in his sermons and writings St. John Chrysostom. He says: “If there is fate, then there is no judgment; if there is fate, then there is no faith; if there is fate, then there is no God; if there is fate, then there is no vice; if there is fate, then it is in vain, we do and endure everything uselessly : - no praise, no blame, no shame, no disgrace, no laws and no courts." “Let us not attribute the government of the world to demons; let us not think that no one cares about real affairs; let us not contrast the providence of God with the tyranny of some fate or fate. All this is filled with blasphemy.”

11. Human free will and God’s providence

It is obvious that fate does not dominate a person, but his life in this world and in the future eternity depends on himself, on his free choice and the action of his free will, with the help of God, who desires his salvation and arranges everything in his life so that he could have escaped.

At the same time, God does not force man, does not limit his free will, but also does not completely retreat before the human will that opposes Him, but, agreeing with man’s free choice, continues to call him to Himself, expecting repentance and reciprocal love.

O. Valentin Sventsitsky writes about the combination of human freedom and God’s providence:

“The Lord gave man freedom. And not in a mechanical way, turning a person into an automaton and thereby depriving all his actions of moral content, the Lord leads him to salvation. The Lord gave man freedom so that he could choose the path of salvation for himself, and this would make possible his free union with the Divine in eternal life. And if a person chooses the path of evil, that is, departure from God, this is not an active expression of the Divine will.

The Divine will allows this departure to happen and does not stop it with His power... The Lord providentially helps us survive them for the good of our salvation.
…The divine will actively helps us in fulfilling this moral task. ...those against whom evil is committed, the Lord helps them survive it for good. And here the Lord leaves the final word to the person himself, so as not to deprive him of his freedom, does not solve the moral problem for him, but contributes to its solution.

…The Lord not only presents freedom to man and not only requires him to fulfill certain moral tasks. According to the teaching of the Church, the Lord watches over every human soul. His every movement, his every thought, feeling, intention - the Lord sees everything and does everything that can be done without depriving him of freedom for his salvation - out of his ineffable love and mercy.

...A person’s whole life is filled with sometimes obvious, sometimes more hidden, care. We should not be embarrassed that He always does not stop evil will and does not do good for us with His almighty will. And here is His mercy. And here is His love. For otherwise life would cease to be life. But, without taking away freedom, He helps our good will, admonishing, showing, enlightening. ... The Lord, by His will, places us in situations in life that help us follow the proper path. He acts on our soul in mysterious, unknown ways, both through the Holy Church, and through certain people whom he sends along our path. And God’s mercy towards us, the unworthy, is so immeasurable that it merits direct influence on others in the form of signs, visions and wonders.

...The Lord wants everyone to be saved. And it doesn’t deprive anyone of their freedom. He leads not only the good, but also the evil to salvation.”

“Providence is the determination of the Divine will in accordance with human freedom, in anticipation of the free actions of the creature. This will is always a saving will, which can create something useful for people in all the vicissitudes of their wanderings, if only a person knows how to recognize it. It can be said with some pardonable inaccuracy that God descends in His providential activity to the freedom of people, acts in accordance with this freedom, coordinates His actions with the actions of created beings, so that, fulfilling His will, he governs the fallen world without violating their created freedom.”
(Lossky V.N.)

From here follows the patristic teaching about synergy, or collaboration between God and man.

So, St. John of Tobolsk writes that we ourselves need to work for our salvation:

“No amount of our diligence and zeal can save us without God’s help; but God’s help without human desire (will) will not bring any benefit: we see examples of this in Peter and Judas. We should avoid one-sidedness: we should not remain in laziness, placing everything on God, and we should also not think that we ourselves, without God’s help and His favor, can do anything good. For God Himself does not do everything, so as not to leave us idle, and He did not leave it to us to do everything, so that we do not become vain: God takes us away from everything that can harm us, and what is useful for us, He encourages us to do. and helps us."

13. God's providence and grace

There is a difference between the concepts of God's providence and God's grace. Providence we call God's power in the world, supporting the existence of the world, its life, including the existence and life of humanity and every person; and by grace - the power of the Holy Spirit, penetrating into the inner being of a person, leading to his spiritual improvement and salvation.
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How many of us remember God in the bustle of worldly life? We are mired in everyday affairs, eternal household worries, eternal lack of money, problems with children, unloved work, and if we turn to the Lord, it is with requests or reproaches, why don’t you give it? Why are you taking this away? And if trouble or misfortune happens, we are sincerely indignant “for what?”

“One of the most common activities of a modern adult is self-pity; we love to retire, sit down and think about life and say the phrase “why did this happen to me?” What have I done? Is this an accident or the action of some fatal forces, or is it God’s providence?”

But there are no accidents in our lives, we simply do not understand how events are connected to each other, why we meet certain people along the path of life. And when something pleasant happens, we say: “it was God’s providence,” the Lord took care of us. What if trouble happened? A loved one got sick or lost their home and everything they owned because of a fire, got into an accident and became disabled, were left without work and money, how many in such situations will be able to understand and accept God’s providence?

“Illness is most often not a punishment, but God’s permission, a person in a healthy state sometimes goes very far from God, like the prodigal son in the Gospel, to a distant land, and when illnesses appear, he returns to the saving fence of the church and begins to analyze what I am not I do this because God allows these diseases, that is, the word punishment is inappropriate here, but permission.

That is, the admission of some kind of illness for the purpose of our correction, for the purpose of our healing of our sinful ulcers. After all, sometimes sinful ulcers are much worse than external, bodily diseases, which the Lord allows us for our correction. Therefore, treating illnesses without grumbling is a purely Christian approach. To thank God is like the righteous Job, about whom it is written in the Bible, who thanked him not only for what was good and good, but also for the sorrow that befell him by God’s permission. Read the book of Job and it is clearly written there how the Lord allowed Job to suffer these sorrows, including the terrible and incurable disease of leprosy at that time, but today it is called leprosy.”

For parents, there is nothing worse than the death of a child, why does God allow the death of a completely innocent child, what is his purpose here?

“The answer to this is, I won’t even cite the holy fathers, Jesus Christ himself answers, such is the Kingdom of Heaven. I don’t even need holy fathers; moreover, he said if you don’t be like them, you won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven like them. And what children was he talking about? There was no baptism then. About those who are not even baptized, such is the Kingdom of Heaven. And these children are already waiting for your parents there. They have already reached home, can you imagine? And if you want this to sound more convincing, imagine that you are walking along a very dangerous section of the road, traveling, and at any moment you can fall into an abyss, be attacked by robbers, and torn apart by animals. And you are walking with your child and suddenly a helicopter appears and, seeing your distress, sits down to you and says that there is only one place, we are flying exactly to where you are going. What will you parents do? You will fall to your knees, asking to pick up your child, thinking that you will somehow get there on your own. Now do you understand what happened? The helicopter flew up and took the child to where we are all going and we are not going anywhere, we are all going. The child is already there and waiting for you, and try to meet your child with dignity so that you don’t feel ashamed. Do you understand what worthy means?

“There is God’s providence over every person and the whole world, and our society is so short-sighted that we cannot see this providence even at a meter, let alone at a greater distance. We cannot even understand the providence of God about one person, let alone several. And we cannot say why this happened, we can only say when innocent people suffer that this is the will of God. I can give several examples from life. One mother had a little daughter and she and her husband divorced or he died. And then my daughter got sick. The mother was so tormented, and it is said that if you ask and ask with faith, the Lord will give, and so they asked for their daughter to recover. Although the doctors said that she was hopeless. And a miracle happens, the daughter instantly begins to recover. The mother is very happy, the daughter grows up and at a completely young age, maybe 18-20 years old, she begins to live a prodigal life, starts drinking, falls into very bad company and finally drives her mother out of the house, who, like a beggar, lives out her life under the fence. It would have been God’s will for this child to die, because God foresaw what would happen next to this child and this woman. She would have died innocently and received the Kingdom of Heaven, but God arranged it so that there would be someone to care for her mother. It turned out that one suffered terribly, and the other spiritually perished.”

“We don’t know what God’s providence is, what God is protecting us from, what God is preparing us for, where God is leading us, because everything that doesn’t happen is for the salvation of the soul. We accept this as the will of God, we accept it with thanksgiving, and perhaps with tears. With tears, but still with thanksgiving. And we find joy, and we find life, and we find God.”

Often illness saves us from something more significant and terrible. It’s good if we understand this and thank God for it.

“Or that wise simple man, the bus driver, why did you come to the temple? To which he replies: “Because God broke my leg. Open fracture. How? What? Why?

But that’s why.”

They broke their leg, they put a cast on it, friends came, let’s go there now, have a drink, and take a walk. They went out and drank, went for a walk, gang rape, everyone was eight years old. Then he says: “How can I thank God? My leg healed in three months, I’m now working and feeding my children, but they’ve been sitting for a year now.”

God gave us free will and the right to choose to do good or evil. He will not force bad people to become good.

“We are all children of God, we all quarreled, quarreled like careless brothers and sisters, and we have established bad orders in our human society, not God’s orders and God expects from us. That we will correct the situation, we created this situation ourselves, we ourselves will correct it. here is the answer to your question. The world is free for us and everyone can take the side of God and actively carry out the will of God. But this does not mean that we are protected from the evil people with whom we come into contact. Because we live in a society in society, we are not closed individuals. And the sins of any member of society are reflected on you and us. I repeat, our world is free.

If someone screwed up some nut on a plane poorly and because of this the plane fell apart and let’s say I and my children died, well, you see, I bear the stamp of this tragedy of the world, the carelessness of a person, if some doctor did an operation with a hangover and it was bad did, and then the person became infected and measures, well, you see, the patient also bears the cross of life in a sinful human society, if some drunk person gets behind the wheel and hits innocent people, or someone drunk burns down a house with children, so what? Well, we can cry for these children, we will sing for these children. We will believe that they will go to the Kingdom of Heaven, but at the same time the Lord does not want to perform a lobotomy, does not want to forcefully re-educate all the bad and evil people. He believes that human society itself will find the resources to do this.”

We are often ungrateful and forget how the Lord more than once rescued us from troubles through His providence. Just strain your memory and remember, because there were such cases.

“I want to say this, I am deeply convinced that when we come to another world, when the truth about our life is revealed to us, because something will be revealed to us, then we will know how many troubles the Lord has saved us from. And we will feel so ashamed of our ingratitude. One of my spiritual daughters recently wrote an essay and it’s called “Ten times when the Lord saved me from death.” We ourselves can remember offhand ten times. I can immediately remember how I got caught on a tram, and it dragged me along with it, and I almost died. And there are many other cases when we walk along a dark alley, we cannot predict that the Lord turned away some drug addict who had already sharpened a knife and was coming to stab us or take money from us. We don’t know, maybe God sent him the idea to stay home and take a different path, or maybe he shouldn’t use drugs today, but go to bed to sleep it off. I don’t know, but I’m sure that when we come to the next world we will see that God has saved us an infinite number of times. Maybe if it weren’t for God’s providence, then cars would collide more often and planes would crash more often, but the Lord protects us and saves us, but this cannot happen all the time, because we live within the framework of a fallen, defeated, sick world. The world, which is just waiting for its healing, therefore let us pray for all the departed, let us pray for all the sufferers and put ourselves into the hands of God. When Saint Anthony prayed why, Lord, do you allow such injustices, that the innocent suffer, God said: “Anthony, pay attention to yourself, otherwise do not test the ways of God.” that is, something is not open to us, we have to come to terms with it.”

“For a non-believer there are no miracles, there are coincidences, there are accidents, but for a believer there is a miracle at every step, not only in the sense of mysticism, but in the fact that without God’s providence nothing happens in the world.”

Magdalena, the daughter of father Nikon Vorobyov, learned from the example of her own life what God’s providence is.

“Mother Magdalene in the world Olga Andreevna Nekrasova for three years now, after returning to her historical homeland from France, she is the bearer of the famous Marfomarin monastery. On her father’s side, our heroine is a relative of the poet Nekrasov, and on her mother’s side, her family descends from the Prophet Mohammed, a Persian sheikh who fled to Russia . His son, having converted to Orthodoxy, became the founder of Russian Oriental studies. The great-grandmother of our heroine was the daughter of Leo Tolstoy, Maria Lvovna. The most revered of the relatives is Saint Joseph of Belgorod. Our heroine is a real legend; twenty letters from Father Nikon Vorobyov’s book “Repentance is Left to Us” are addressed to her. Nikon Vorobyov was tonsured in 1931, survived arrest, imprisonment, and exile. He acquired the unceasing Jesus Prayer and the gift of spiritual reasoning. Sermons and letters from spiritual children “Repentance is left to us” are included in the golden fund of Orthodox literature.”

God’s providence is amazing, how a girl from a non-religious family of Russian immigrants came to God. In 1945, Olya returned to her homeland with her mother, stepfather and three children. This is largely thanks to Metropolitan Yaroshevich, with whom God’s providence will bring young Olga, the future nun Magdalene, together. But difficult trials awaited Olya in her homeland. The stepfather was arrested, and the family was sent to southern Kazakhstan. Then my mother became very ill, there was only one chance of recovery, to go to Moscow for help from Metropolitan Nicholas.

“The girl decides to escape; capture meant twenty years of strict regime. Without money, without documents, without really knowing the country, with the constant prayer of the Mother of God, she gets to Moscow, meets with Metropolitan Nicholas, and then returns back. From a letter to my brother:

“After these terrible 17 days of escape, logically they simply cannot help but catch me. A few days later I ended up on the Tashkent-Moscow train, it was a real miracle and I was smart enough to send an encrypted telegram to my mother, it was intercepted and I should have been immediately removed from the train. And I drove for another four days. Do you think they did a bad job? No. They worked well, and they didn’t have to work hard to catch me. Now the action of God’s providence in all subsequent events is obvious to me. If earlier in the most difficult moments the Lord saved us, then during these 17 days this happened to me constantly, as if in a movie played at an accelerated pace. Olga met with Metropolitan Nicholas, who gave her money and sent her back, but the girl received four months in prison for escaping.

“From a letter to my brother:
Suddenly there was a knock behind the wall and a man’s voice was heard, I immediately jumped away from the wall, remembering that behind it there was a cell with bandits, but the voice softly and clearly told me: “don’t cry girl, don’t cry in life everything happens only for the better.” . And I suddenly remembered that today is a holiday, I remembered that there is a God about whom I had completely forgotten, how he saved me in the most hopeless situations, and in this snow-covered ice chamber I experienced such joy that I had never experienced with such strength again. These words, spoken by a man whom I had never seen, were never perceived by me as spoken by God. If only a person loves the Lord, everything will work for his good.”

“Not a single hair will fall from a man’s head without the will of God,” said Christ. Everything that happens to us in life is lessons designed to bring us closer to the Heavenly Father. The main thing is to understand this in time and accept his will, trust him. After the insight of what Olga Nekrasova experienced during one of the most difficult periods of her life, the unexpected happened. The guard brought a padded jacket, a gift from the next cell, and gave me hot tea. And the prison suddenly turned into a temple of God, and this day, as Mother Magdalene says, became one of the brightest days in her life. In the morning, the doctor cut out her appendix and thereby saved her from the stage.”

“Man is the temple of the living God,” said the Apostle Paul, “but first this temple must be built, not just anywhere, but in one’s soul. Someone builds it all their lives, someone leaves without ever starting and without even realizing its necessity, and someone is led into this temple by the Lord himself, in one jerk, like our heroine. But what is God's providence? Everyone take up your cross and follow me, Christ said, and save yourself and thousands around you will be saved. Meeting with people like Magdalene, who managed to see and embody in their destiny, more and more strengthens the belief that our people, who have gone through a severe spiritual fall and thirst for light, will enter God’s temple, and for them we and the whole world, because It was said by the holy elders who saw through God’s providence that the salvation of the world will come from Russia.

God sees in advance the life of a person as a whole... and decides - this one should be among the believers and saved, and this one should not be... The definition of God is a conclusion from the whole life of a person; life itself flows according to the inclinations of will, and according to the influence of Divine Providence on it, both inside and outside...

Saint Theophan the Recluse

...Always trust only in God, but never in man. Then all evil will fall away from you like a cut off branch.

Venerable Barsanuphius of Optina

The great Pimen said: “Our will is a copper wall between us and God, and does not allow us to get close to Him or contemplate His mercy.”We must always ask the Lord for spiritual peace, so that it would be more convenient to fulfill the Lord’s commandments; for the Lord loves those who strive to do His will, and thus they find great peace in God.

Venerable Silouan of Athos

Conduct yourself simply and with complete trust in God. By placing our future and our hope on God, we, in some way, oblige Him to help us. Do you know how everything changes if you trust God? Is it a joke to have God as your ally? There are no difficult situations for God; it is not difficult for Him to find a way out of any situation. For God everything is simple...

Elder Paisiy Svyatogorets

...Do not rush to reach out to tomorrow, live today, today learn to see the will of God for yourself at the present moment, and not only see it, but you must also have an unshakable determination to fulfill it, so you will live by the guidance of God. We must forget our “like it or not”, we must accept God’s.

Archimandrite John Krestyankin

The will of God is holy and good. Divine Providence - How to know and see the will of God? — Cutting off one’s will and trusting in God — About everyday life —About the benefits of small acts of virtue - Holy Scripture about trust in God

The will of God is holy and good. Providence of God

Venerable Anthony the Great (251-356) taught his disciples: “A truly intelligent person has one concern, to wholeheartedly obey and please God in every possible way. This and the only thing he teaches his soul is how to please God, thanking Him for His good providence, no matter what happenstance in life. For it is inappropriate for doctors, even when they give us bitter and unpleasant medicines, not to give thanks for the healing of the body, but to God, because of what seems not joyful to us, to remain ungrateful, not realizing that everything happens according to His providence and for benefit us. In such understanding, and in such faith in God, there is salvation and peace of the soul.”

Venerable Isaac the Syrian (550) writes: “If you have once entrusted yourself to the Lord, who is all-sufficient to protect you and look after you, then do not worry about anything like that again, but tell your soul: “For me, He is sufficient for every task, to whom I once gave my soul.” I'm not here; He knows it." – Then you will actually see the miracles of God, you will see how God is close at all times to deliver those who fear Him., and how His Providence surrounds, although invisible. But because the Guardian who is with you is invisible with your bodily eyes, you should not doubt Him, as if He does not exist; for He often reveals Himself to the eyes of the body, so that He may be pleased with you.

Those in whom the light of faith shines no longer reach such shamelessness as to again ask God in prayers: “Give us this,” or: “Take that from us,” and do not care at all about themselves; because with the spiritual eyes of faith they see every hour the Fatherly Providence with which that true Father overshadows them, Who with His immeasurably great love surpasses all fatherly love, more than anyone else can and has the power to assist us to an excess of greater extent than we ask, think and imagine .

Be sure that your Guardian is always with you and that, together with other creatures, you stand under one Lord, Who with a single wave sets everything in motion and arranges everything. Stand courageously and be complacent. Neither demons, nor destructive beasts, nor vicious people can fulfill their will to harm you and destroy you, unless the Ruler allows this to happen and does not give this place to a certain extent. Therefore say to your soul: “I have a Guardian who protects me; and not one of the creatures can appear before me, unless there is a command from above. If it is the will of my Lord that the evil ones prevail over creation, then I accept this without being upset, as I do not want the will of my Lord to remain unfulfilled.” Thus, in your temptations you will be filled with joy, as one who knows and understands exactly that the Master’s command controls and disposes of you. So strengthen your heart with trust in the Lord.”

Venerable Abba Dorotheos of Palestine (620) writes what God’s good will is: “God wants us to desire His good will.

To love one another, to be compassionate, to give alms and the like—this is God’s good will.”

Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (1783-1867) writes that all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth, and teaches in all sorrowful circumstances and disasters to see the good Providence of God: “Poverty, illness, hunger, death come to people: is this the way of the Lord? Where is the mercy? These calamities befall many, evil and good, without discernible distinction: is this the way of the Lord? Where is the truth here? Natural evil is born from natural causes, but it is often averted by natural means: where is the way of God here? Do we not notice how perplexities of this kind are readily invented and preached by the people of this century, as if they were new discoveries, as if they were knowledge of the laws of nature? Truly, the pure, sublime gaze of the Prophet is not superfluous here in order to discern the path of God in the affairs of nature, in order to reveal the mercy and truth of the Lord through the confusion of human innocence and guilt. And David sees this and warns our later wise men long ago so that they do not make inappropriate exceptions from the laws and authority of both the all-good and all-encompassing Providence. All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth(Ps. 24, 10).

Since God is infinite, omnipresent and omnipotent, there is no state of creatures in the universe that would be inaccessible to Him, through which some path of the Lord would not lie: there is no event that would not be led by the path of the Lord, however, so that the path The Lord never restricts the paths of freedom for moral beings. Since God, who is omnipresent and governs everything, is also a wise, righteous and all-good God, then all the actions of His conduct, all the events of the world concerning moral beings, are conducted in such a way that everything is a means to good and against evil; so that what is called evil because of its unpleasant sensation and destructive actions in visible nature, this, so to speak, superficial manifestation of evil, was a medicine or antidote to a deeper and more genuine evil which, born from the abuse of the freedom of moral beings, damages them internally and becomes the source of countless and endless evil consequences, internal and external, if its paths are not stopped by the ways of the Lord. All the ways of the Lord including those named so paths of wrath(Ps. 77, 50), or punitive actions of Providence, and disasters, apparently randomly found, apparently indiscriminately striking, are mercy and truth, relating primarily to those who seek His covenant and His witness;- truth, when a sinner is struck and the multiplication of sins and the spread of sinful infection is prevented; the truth when a righteous person is saved in a common disaster; mercy, when a sinner is spared, in whom repentance has either already been initiated, or is foreseen to be initiated; mercy and truth together, when by the calamity which threatened many and befell few, many were brought to the knowledge of their sinful condition and stirred up to reform.

Heard by Job and still heard today comforters of evil(Job.16:2), (that is, those comforters who, thinking to console in evil, produce new evil with false consolation) say: be calm - a destructive disease is not at all the wrath and punishment of God. So what is she, my friends? Is favor and reward from God? It is likely that such a comforter would not wish for such a reward; but it is true that philanthropy will not allow us to wish it for him.

When a rod appears in the temple of a good father, the one who sees it will immediately think: apparently there are guilty ones among the children. The Universe is the home of the Heavenly Father. He protects people, especially children of faith, more than the mother of her children(see: Is.49, 15). Social disaster is, without a doubt, not a wreath, but a rod. So, when I see this rod, I cannot think otherwise than that the children of the earth apparently deserve punishment from the Heavenly Father.

If they think that disaster did not come through the truth and mercy of the Lord, punishing evil and turning to good, then I ask: how did disaster come into the world? Stealthily? - It is forbidden. God is omniscient. Forcibly? - It is forbidden! God is omnipotent. By the blind movement of the forces of nature? - It is forbidden. They are ruled by the all-wise and all-good God. No matter where you turn with your guesses, you will be forced to return to one indisputable truth: If somehow disaster brought into the world, then it was allowed in no other way than as a means of Providence, punitive and corrective, and sometimes testing and perfecting, - as the truth and mercy of the ways of the Lord.”

Venerable Macarius of Optina (1788-1860) in one of his letters he writes about firm faith in the Providence of God and about surrendering all of himself and his loved ones to His holy will - then all our bewilderments are dispelled, that God does not hear our prayers and does not help in the sorrowful circumstances that befall us, etc. : “The bewilderment and confusion that trouble you concerns you and your children not only in temporary life, but extends to eternity. You, although you want to get rid of inconveniences in life, resort to material means and ask God to send them to you; If you don’t receive it soon, you reach despondency and despair. I offer you what you yourself know: destinies of God inscrutable! Your destinies are many abyss(Ps.35:7), and Thy destinies, O Lord, throughout all the earth(Ps. 104, 7). And the Apostle Paul exclaims: O the depth of the wealth and wisdom and mind of God! who has tried the mind of the Lord, or who has been His adviser(Rom.11:33-34)?

From this we can conclude that God’s providence is over all of us, and even a bird does not fall without His will and the hair of our head will not perish (see: Luke 21, 18).

And isn’t your present position in the will of God? Believe firmly that God is looking out for you; don't give room for doubt lest the word of the Scripture come true against you: Your destinies are taken away from before him(Ps. 9, 26).

But you ask and don’t receive, which confuses you even more.

And as you know from the history of human life and from the examples that happen before our eyes, what accidents people are struck by: a family is sometimes deprived of its father, a husband of his wife, a wife of her beloved husband, parents of their only begotten son - all their hope and joy; children remain orphans, without care; another is deprived of all wealth, becomes a beggar, another suffers various misfortunes, sorrows of illness, is deprived of honor, and so on.

Who manages all this if not The providence of the Almighty, allowing everyone sorrow, according to his measure, strength and structure in order to punish him, or to test and strengthen his faith, or to protect him from falling into sin?

Those who suffered misfortune rightly asked for deliverance and relief from sorrows, but did not receive it soon; and why? The One Almighty Creator and Provider of all knows this. We know that He we demand their news before our petition(Matt. 6:8) and that He gives us benefits that we do not expect from Him; that He is always a timely helper in sorrows.

One church teacher says: “The Lord, although invisibly, is really close to us, so that He can hear all our groans and give us His help. He knows and sees all our needs and misfortunes, and His loving heart is filled with goodness and readiness to help, which He showed when He lived on earth, full of grace and truth. But the Lord does not deliver me from misfortune for a long time! Yes, beloved, but He has placed the time and method of deliverance in His power».

Surrender yourself to His holy will and pour out your sorrow before Him, with the psalmist: I will pour out my prayer before Him; I will declare my sorrow before Him. My spirit will never disappear from me, and You have known my paths(Ps. 141, 4). My heart has always been sad, I have cried from the ends of the earth(Ps. 60: 3). God is our refuge and strength, our helper in the sorrows that have come upon us(Ps.45:2).

And expect His all-generous and merciful right hand to help you in your sorrows; but if you do not receive what you want and ask for for a long time, then strengthen yourself with the above reasoning; - and believe that it should be this way and not otherwise.

Perhaps this is testing your faith and love for God, or the place you are asking for might not be useful to you morally or physically. The Lord is able to comfort you in others, in the only way known to Him.

Your sorrow, of course, is not forgotten before God, who tests hearts and bellies. If this is punishment, then Holy Scripture tells us: The Lord loves him, punishes him, beats every son who accepts him(Proverbs 3:12). And in the very sorrows, the mercy of God appears and spiritual consolation is given. Cast your sorrow upon the Lord, and He will nourish you(Ps. 54, 23).

You think that it is better for your son to always be with you, but who knows? And in your presence, if God allows, it can deteriorate, and in the hands of others it can survive without harm.

But, wherever your children are, whether with you or in some institution, instill in them Christian rules and entrust them to God and the intercession of the Mother of God...”

about God’s determination, about His Providence and about human will in our lives, he writes: “God sees in advance the life of a person as a whole... and decides - this one should be among the believers and saved, and this one should not be... The definition of God is a conclusion from the whole life of a person; life itself flows both according to the inclinations of will, and according to the influence of Divine Providence on it both inside and outside... God does everything to enlighten man. If, after all the care for him, he sees him not wanting to improve, then he leaves him, as if saying: “Well, there’s nothing to do, stay.” God does not want the sinner to die; but he does not force the will, and only does everything to incline the will towards good. He foresees all such things about everyone, and as He foresees, so He determines.”

Here's what he writes about it (1910-2006): « God has no predestination for man, but man is certainly a co-creator of his life with the Lord.

And the Lord, looking over our lives, sees is life extension beneficial to us? Are we living our days for good? is there still hope for repentance?

There is no arbitrariness in life. And the state of our soul affects the timing of earthly life.

...Life itself teaches us about life. But if we deliberately sin, then we will not transfer this sin onto others. The other one is responsible for his own, and we are responsible for ours.

Do not forget that We are not pawns in life, but co-creators with God.”

Elder Arseny (Minin) (1823-1879) about God’s Providence in our lives he says: “We must be attentive and reverent to the ways of God’s Providence, through which our mind is enlightened by the light of truth, according to the word of the Lord: I am the way and the truth and the life(John 14:6). In the Holy Scriptures, not everything is revealed to man, due to the limitations of his mind. A person will receive complete insight upon his transition to eternity. In real life, as much is revealed to a person as he can accommodate and as much as is necessary for him, according to God’s vision, for this life in which he lives by faith. He stands on faith, as on an unshakable foundation.”

Hegumen Nikon Vorobyov (1894-1963) in one of his letters to his spiritual children he writes: “You seem to be upset that the years are passing by. You are not built... This is all from this world and from its prince. He scares you. He confuses your thoughts, inspires all sorts of fears and lies, and lies endlessly, and thereby betrays himself in all areas.

What is the essence of Christianity? The fact that the Almighty, Omniscient Creator of the universe so loves and pities man, cares so much about him and his salvation that he gave His Only Begotten Son to shame, the Cross and death. The Lord cares not only about humanity as a whole, but also about each person individually, holds him in His hand every minute, protects him from invisible and visible enemies, admonishes him through people, and through books and life circumstances. If it is necessary to punish a person for admonition and protection from greater trouble, then he punishes with mercy, and then, if the person can accept without harm, he rewards purely, as if regretting that he punished. Anyone whose inner vision has opened somewhat sees this amazing providence of God for man in both the great and the small. And indeed: if God for the sake of man sacrificed the most precious thing - His Son - then how can he regret anything, for the whole universe is nothing before this Sacrifice. The Lord does not spare anything, especially for those who strive for Him, who try to fulfill His word, who lament in their hearts over every sin committed, as a violation of His will, as if inattention to Him, ingratitude and dislike for Him.

He who comes to Me will not be cast out! The Lord rejoices over everyone who reaches out to Him, immeasurably more than a mother rejoices over her child’s love for her.

That's why don't be afraid of the future. God is with us today and tomorrow and forever. Just be afraid of offending Him with any sin.

If through weakness we fall into something wrong, we will repent, and the Lord will forgive us; we just don’t need to consciously choose evil (sin), justify ourselves, or grumble against God. Don't be afraid of anything. Be bold, cast all sorrows, bewilderments, fears, insults from demons and people on the Lord, and He wants and knows how to free you from them when it will be useful to you. Don't trust yourself and people. Believe the Word of God, the Gospel.

(1910-2006) writes about the good Providence of God in our lives (from letters to laymen and clergy): “God has no forgotten people, and God’s Providence sees everyone. And the world is ruled by God, only God, and no one else…

God does not consult with anyone and does not give an account to anyone. One thing is certain that everything He does is good for us, one goodness, one love.

...You can and should only change your inner man, who has been in the Church for so many years and has not yet begun to believe that the world is ruled by God’s Providence...

Learn to thank God for everything. And with gratitude accept from His hand both days of prosperity and days of sorrow. AND the basis of our consolation is that God’s Providence rules the world...

God, in the city, in the village, in Russia, and abroad, is One. And God’s Providence builds the destinies of nations and each person separately...

Life is difficult now, a barrage of frightening information is shaking the already fragile balance. So that we do not react so painfully to these storms excited by the enemy, one must firmly believe that God rules the world, and try, as much as possible, to live according to God’s commandments.

Faith that saves a person is not only faith in the existence of God in heaven and in the abstract... No, faith is real submission to the Living God on earth, unconditional trust in His entirety in His Revelation, striving and following the paths He indicated and interpreting absolutely everything for the glory of God.”

How to know and see the will of God?

(1788-1860) in one of the letters he writes: “You ask how to do everything not according to your will and how to know and see the will of God? The will of God is visible in His commandments, which we must try to fulfill when dealing with our neighbors, and in case of non-fulfillment and crime, bring repentance. Our will is corrupted, and we need constant compulsion to fulfill the will of God, and we must ask for His help.”

Archimandrite John (Peasant) (1910-2006) writes in his letter: “...Everything is by Him, everything is from Him, everything is to Him” - this is how we live. And now, at the end of my life’s journey, I testify that there is no better and truer path than to live according to the will of God. And the will of God is revealed to us so clearly by the circumstances of life.”

Cutting off your will and trusting in God

“The most valuable thing is to learn to surrender yourself entirely to the will of God”

Archimandrite John (Peasant)

Saint John Chrysostom (347-407):“Take heed, brother, when something unexpectedly befalls you and saddens you, do not resort to people and do not rely on human help, but, leaving all people, direct your thoughts to the Doctor of souls. The only one who can heal the heart is He who alone created our hearts and knows all our deeds; He can enter our conscience, touch our heart and comfort our soul.

If He does not comfort our hearts, then human consolations will be useless and in vain; just as vice versa, when God calms and consoles, then, even if people bother us a thousand times, they will not be able to harm us in the least, because when He strengthens the heart, then no one can shake it.”

Venerable Isaac the Syrian (550):“As soon as a person rejects all visible help and human hope and follows God with faith and a pure heart, grace will immediately follow him and reveal its power to him in various help. First, he opens this visible thing concerning the body, and helps him with providence about it, so that in this he can most of all feel the power of God’s Providence about him. By understanding the help in the obvious, he is assured of help in the hidden - in the reasoning of which grace reveals to him the intricacy of difficult thoughts and thoughts, as a result of which a person can easily find their meaning, their mutual connection and their charm, and how they are born one from the other - and destroy the soul. At the same time, grace puts to shame in his eyes all the wickedness of the demons and, as if with a finger, shows him what he would have suffered if he had not recognized this. Then the thought is born in him that every thing, small and great, he should ask his Creator in prayer.

When the grace of God confirms his thoughts so that in all this he trusts in God, then little by little he begins to enter into temptation. And grace allows temptations to be sent to him, corresponding to his measure, in order to inflict their power on a person. And in these temptations, help is tangibly approaching him, so that he may be in good spirits until he gradually learns and acquires wisdom, and in trusting in God begins to despise his enemies. For It is impossible for a person to become wise in spiritual battles, to know his Provider, to feel his God and to be intimately established in faith in Him, except by the strength of the test he has passed.”

Venerable Abba Dorotheos of Palestine (620):“Nothing brings such benefit to people as cutting off one’s will, and from this a person prospers more than from any other virtue.

Only then does a person see the immaculate path of God when he leaves his own will. When he obeys his own will, he does not see that the ways of God are blameless, and if he hears any instruction, he immediately condemns and denies it.

Cutting off your will is a real battle with yourself, to the point of bloodshed, and to achieve this a person must work until death.”

Venerable Elder Paisiy (Velichkovsky) (1722-1794):“The Holy Fathers cared about the present day; about tomorrow, regarding every thing and need, they entrusted care to God, committing soul and body into the hands of the Lord, and He Himself provides for their lives and takes care of every need. Cast your sorrow upon the Lord, and He will nourish you(Ps. 54, 23); Be constantly occupied with Him alone; for He always hears day and night those who cry to Him; especially looks at their unceasing prayer. If we take care of ourselves, then God does not take care of us; if we ourselves take revenge, then God does not avenge us; If we free ourselves from illnesses, then God does not heal us.

If someone does not cast all of himself on God, both in necessary bodily needs and in all sorrow he does not say: "As God pleases"- cannot be saved... When we are sick, we get wounds, or we approach death and die, or we suffer a lack of necessary needs and have no one who would have mercy on us; and if we say: “As God wills, so let him do with us,” then by this alone the devil, our enemy, will be put to shame and defeated.”

Elder Moses, Archimandrite of the Bryansk White Coast Hermitage (1772-1848) said that in everything we must seek God’s help, and not rely on ourselves, and resort to God in everything.

Place yourself in everything on the will of God in all circumstances and say: it will be the will of God.

This is how the father instructed his children and thus always remained in peace of mind, without embarrassment, and taught the brethren that they should always rely in everything on the will of God and remain in peace and tranquility of soul and would not be embarrassed about anything, but would submit everything that happens to the will of God .

Saint Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894) writes about renouncing one’s will: “The beginning of all sins is in the disobedience of the first man to the command of God the King, and now What is every sin but the fruit of disobedience?. Ask, why do the zealots of piety suffer most of all? From the waywardness of your will. What did the holy ascetics primarily arm themselves against? Against your will. What prevents a sinner from leaving sin and turning to God - on the path of righteousness? Persistence and corruption of one's will. How therefore should it be beneficial to destroy, or at least diminish this evil in us - our will, to crush this iron neck(Is.48, 4)! (Neck - neck; Here: self-will). But how and what is the most convenient way to do this? Nothing more than obedience, renunciation of one’s will, surrendering oneself to the will of another...”

About surrendering yourself to the will of God, Saint Theophan writes: “When things come from the heart, there is living life... and when it is dedicated to the Lord, then it is divine: for then God is working in you. Thinking about yourself and your fate, you decide: be the will of God. There is no wiser decision than this. He who is like this in his heart is like a quiet refuge, although before your eyes is the troubled sea of ​​the world... Keep the boat of your life at this anchor, and the waves will not drown you, the splashes will only sprinkle you a little.

Keep it like this: always belong to the Lord. This requires a lot: always carrying the Lord in your thoughts; in the heart - always have a feeling for the Lord; in the will - do everything you do for the Lord. Three points, but those that combine everything in themselves - they embrace the whole life.”

Venerable Macarius of Optina(1788-1860): “Faith does not consist only in believing that there is a God, but also in His all-wise Providence, which governs His creatures and arranges everything for their benefit; times and seasons the Father has set in His power(Acts 1:7) and for each of us he determined the limit of life before our existence, so that no bird will fall to the ground without the will of your Father, no hair will perish from your head (see Matt. 10, 29; Luke 21 , 18)".

A person who has such faith sees God in everything, trusts in Him, seeks His help and protection, loves Him and tries to be pleasing to Him in everything. Sin has no power over such a person, because the greatest thing he fears is separation from the Lord his God.

Venerable Barsanuphius of Optina (1845-1913):

« Do not trust in princes, in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation.”(Ps. 145, 3). ...Always trust only in God, but never in man. Then all evil will fall away from you like a cut off branch.”

Venerable Silouan of Athos (1866-1938): « Great good - surrender to the will of God. There is only one Lord in the soul then, and there is no other thought, and she prays to God with a pure mind, and feels the love of God, although she suffers in body.

When the soul has completely surrendered to the will of God, then the Lord Himself begins to guide it, and the soul directly learns from God, and previously was instructed by teachers and Scripture.

The proud person does not want to live according to the will of God: he loves to govern himself; and does not understand that man does not have enough reason to control himself without God. And I, when I lived in the world and did not yet know the Lord and His Holy Spirit, did not know how much the Lord loves us, I relied on my own reason; but when by the Holy Spirit I came to know our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, then my soul surrendered to God, and everything that sorrowful happens to me, I accept and say: “The Lord is looking at me; What should I be afraid of? Before, I couldn’t live like this.

For someone who has surrendered to the will of God, life is much easier, because in illness, in poverty, and in persecution, he thinks: “This is how God pleases, and I must endure for my sins.”

The best thing is to surrender to the will of God and bear sorrow with hope; The Lord, seeing our sorrows, will never give us too much. If sorrows seem great to us, this means that we have not surrendered to the will of God.

He who has surrendered to the will of God does not grieve for anything, even if he were sick, and poor, and persecuted. The soul knows that the Lord graciously cares for us.

Great Pimen said: “Our will is a copper wall between us and God, and does not allow us to get close to Him or contemplate His mercy.”

We must always ask the Lord for spiritual peace, so that it would be more convenient to fulfill the Lord’s commandments; for the Lord loves those who strive to do His will, and thus they find great peace in God.

He who does the will of the Lord is pleased with everything, although he is poor and perhaps sick and suffering, because he is gladdened by the grace of God. And whoever is dissatisfied with his fate, grumbles about illness or about the one who offended him, let him know that he is in a proud spirit, which has taken away his gratitude to God.

But if so, then do not be discouraged, but try to firmly trust in the Lord and ask Him for a humble spirit; and when the humble Spirit of God comes to you, you will love Him and will be at peace, although there will be sorrows.

A soul that has acquired humility always remembers God and thinks:

“God created me; He suffered for me; He forgives my sins and comforts me; He nourishes me and takes care of me. So why should I care about myself, or what should I be afraid of, even if I was threatened with death?

The Lord admonishes every soul that has surrendered itself to the will of God, for He said: “Call Me in the day of your tribulation; and I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me” (Ps. 49:15).

Every soul that is troubled by something should ask the Lord, and the Lord will give understanding. But this is mainly in times of trouble and embarrassment, and usually you should ask your confessor, because it is more humbling.

All people on earth inevitably bear sorrow; and although the sorrows that the Lord sends us are small, they seem overwhelming to people and overwhelm them , and this is because they do not want to humble their souls and surrender to the will of God. And those who have surrendered to the will of God are guided by the Lord Himself with His grace, and they courageously endure everything for the sake of God, Whom they loved and with whom they are glorified forever.

The Lord gave the Holy Spirit to earth, and in whom He lives, he feels heaven within himself.

Perhaps you will say: why is there no such grace with me? Because you have not surrendered to the will of God, but live according to your own.

Look at the one who loves his own will. He never has peace in his soul and is always dissatisfied: this is not right, this is not good. And whoever has completely surrendered to the will of God has pure prayer, his soul loves the Lord, and everything is pleasant and sweet to him.

We must always pray that the Lord will enlighten us on what needs to be done, and the Lord will not leave us to be mistaken.

Adam was not wise to ask the Lord about the fruit that Eve gave, and therefore lost paradise.

David did not ask the Lord: “Will it be good if I take Uriah’s wife for myself?”, and fell into the sin of murder and adultery.

Likewise, all the saints who sinned sinned because they did not call on God for help to enlighten them. St. Seraphim of Sarov said: “When I spoke from my mind, there were mistakes.”

So, only the Lord is omniscient, but we all, no matter who we are, need to pray to God for admonition and ask our spiritual father so that there are no mistakes.

The Spirit of God instructs everyone in different ways: one is silent alone, in the desert; another prays for people; another is called to shepherd the verbal flock of Christ; to another it is given to preach or console the afflicted; another serves his neighbor from his labors or estates - and all these are gifts of the Holy Spirit, and all to varying degrees: some for thirty, some for sixty, some for a hundred (Mark 4:20).”

Schema-Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) (1896-1993):“In the act of rejecting his will and reason for the sake of remaining in the ways of God’s will, which surpasses all human wisdom, a Christian, in essence, renounces nothing else but passionate, selfish (egoistic) self-will and his little helpless mind-reason, and thereby demonstrating both genuine wisdom and rare strength will of a special, higher order.”

Elder Paisiy Svyatogorets (1924-1994) about trust in the will of God he says this: “Behave simply and with complete trust in God. By placing our future and our hope on God, we, in some way, oblige Him to help us.

Do you know how everything changes if you trust God? Is it a joke to have God as your ally? There are no difficult situations for God; it is not difficult for Him to find a way out of any situation. For God everything is simple. He does not use more power for the supernatural and less for the natural; He uses the same power in everything. If only a person cleaves to Him - that’s the most important thing.

If we humbly ask for God's mercy, then God will help».

Archimandrite John (Peasant) (1910-2006) He writes about the will of God in our lives (from letters to lay and clergy): « Will God's concern for us is that while living on earth, we learn to know God and with joy and desire to follow the will of God - the only saving one that fills life with true content.

And a person can do any work - from the most insignificant to the greatest - and be saved or perish.

You will live for God, for the sake of God and for the glory of God - that is salvation, this is the true, and not ephemeral, meaning of life...

…On our part it is necessary and important to have an inner spiritual aspiration to desire to fulfill the will of God in life. And believe me, the Lord will accept and justify the sincerity of our feelings. He, in addition to our understanding and comprehension, will guide our fragile boat through life with His firm hand.

I am 91 years old, and I now testify to myself and others that the Lord knows our innermost, and according to our faith and striving for the truth, he rules our lives, often healing and correcting that which, due to ignorance and misunderstanding, may hinder the fulfillment of God’s will in ours. life...

Let us pray that our being will be tuned to receive from the Lord everything that He sends. But we need hope and faith, but again we will not wait for longed-for grace, but with hope and faith we will accept that the Lord is leading us precisely along that path, the end of which is salvation of the soul and peace in the Lord...

...With time and experience you will understand that complete good for us only in what is done according to the will of God. Read spiritual books, lives of saints. Start with Dostoevsky. Read and comprehend.”

About everyday life

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”(1 Cor. 10:31)

« Live not as you want, but as God commands»

Archimandrite John (Peasant)

Saint Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894) writes: “Needs and worries are truly destructive for the spiritual system, but this destructive power of them can be cut off surrendering oneself to the will of God. This does not mean that you sit with folded hands and wait for God to give, but come up with ways and use them in action, leave the success of everything to God’s dispensation…

There is one solution for all everyday affairs, in order to adapt them to a single need, and not to lead them to the detriment of it.

Household affairs They can only excuse short standing in prayer, but they cannot excuse the impoverishment of inner prayer. The Lord does not desire much, but at least a little from the heart.”

Archimandrite John (Peasant) (1910-2006) in his letters he writes: “The Lord always leads us precisely in our paths; He cannot make mistakes and knows something that we don’t know about ourselves, and therefore our idea of ​​the desired happiness or unhappiness does not correspond to the truth. There are people who, by all human standards, are completely unhappy, one of them lies motionless for thirty years, but God grant us all the happiness in which he lives.

We must pray and thank the Lord, learn to endure and humble ourselves, and for this we must learn, first of all, to tolerate ourselves . So we will live, suffer, and sometimes through suffering we will feel the nearness of the Lord. But living everyday life is difficult. We must work and accustom ourselves to pray. Not by standing in front of icons all day, but in the memory of God in the usual doing of everyday concerns, briefly, easily and even cheerfully turning to the Lord: “Lord, have mercy, Lord, forgive.”

Try to live in the presence of your guardian angel - and you will see how wonderfully He will arrange everything. Be more attentive to yourself and stricter. Don’t worry about following all the rules. Fulfilled - thank God! Didn't fulfill it - forgive me, Lord! Comply everything not only with the requirements, but also with your physical and spiritual well-being. Our Savior saves us, not our exploits and labors.

So continue to live: work in moderation, pray in moderation, and you and your loved ones will be saved...

About the benefits of small acts of kindness

Archimandrite John (Peasant)(1910-2006): “Many people think that living by faith and doing the will of God is very difficult. It's actually very easy. You just have to pay attention to the little things, the trifles, and try not to sin in the smallest and easiest things. This is the simplest and easiest way to enter the spiritual world and get closer to God.

Usually a person thinks that the Creator requires very great deeds from him, the most extreme self-sacrifice, the complete humiliation of his personality. A person is so frightened by these thoughts that he begins to fear getting closer to God in anything, hides from God, like Adam who sinned, and does not even delve into the word of God. “All the same,” he thinks, “I can’t do anything for God and for my soul, I’d rather stay away from the spiritual world, I won’t think about eternal life, about God, but I’ll live as I live.”

At the very entrance to the religious realm, there is a certain “hypnosis of big things”: you have to do some big thing - or nothing at all. And people do nothing for God and for their souls. It’s surprising: the more a person is devoted to the little things in life, the less he wants to be honest, pure, and faithful to God in the little things. Meanwhile, every person who wants to get closer to the Kingdom of God must go through the correct attitude to little things.

“He who wants to draw closer”—herein lies the whole difficulty of man’s religious paths. Usually he wants to enter the Kingdom of God completely unexpectedly, magically, miraculously, or, by right, through some kind of feat. But neither one nor the other is the true location of the upper world.

Man does not magically miraculously enter God, remaining alien on earth to the interests of the Kingdom of God; he does not buy the values ​​of the Kingdom of God by any of his external actions. Actions are necessary for the good inculcation in a person of a higher life, a heavenly psychology, a bright will, a desire for good, a just and pure heart, and unfeigned love. It is through small, daily actions that all this can be instilled and rooted in a person.

Small good deeds are water on the flower of a person’s personality. It is not at all necessary to pour a sea of ​​water onto a flower that requires water. You can pour out half a glass, and this will be enough to make a big difference in your life. A person who is hungry or has been starving for a long time does not need to eat half a pound of bread - it is enough to eat half a pound, and his body will perk up.

...I would like to focus every person’s close attention on very small, very easy for him and, however, extremely necessary things.

Whoever gives one of these little ones to drink only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, will not lose his reward.(Matthew 10:42). This word of the Lord contains the highest expression of the importance of small good. A cup of water is not much. Palestine at the time of the Savior was not a desert, as it is today, it was a flourishing, irrigated country, and the cup of water was therefore a very small quantity, but, of course, practically valuable at a time when people traveled mostly on foot...

If people were wise, they would all strive for a small and very easy task for them, through which they could obtain eternal treasure for themselves. The great salvation of people is that they can be grafted onto the trunk of the eternal tree of life through the most insignificant cutting - an act of goodness. Good... the smallest things can have a huge effect. That is why you should not neglect the little things in goodness and say to yourself: “I can’t do great good - I won’t care about any good.”

...Truly, small good is more necessary and vital in the world than great good. People live without big things, but they can’t live without little things. Humanity perishes not from a lack of great good, but from a lack of precisely small good. The great good is only a roof built on the walls - the bricks of the small good.

So, the Creator left the smallest, easiest good on earth for man to create, taking upon Himself all the great things. The Creator creates our small things with His great things, for our Lord is the Creator, who created everything out of nothing, much less can he create great things out of small things. But the upward movement itself is opposed by air and earth. Every good thing, even the smallest and easiest, is opposed by human inertia. The Savior revealed this inertia in his short parable: And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately wants new, for he says: old is better.(Luke 5:39). Every person living in the world is attached to the ordinary and familiar. A person is accustomed to evil - he considers it his normal, natural state, and goodness seems to him something unnatural, shy, beyond his strength. If a person is accustomed to goodness, then he no longer does it because he needs to do it, but because he cannot help but do it, just as a person cannot help but breathe, or a bird cannot help but fly.

A person with a good mind strengthens and consoles himself first of all. And this is not selfishness at all, as some unfairly claim, no, this is a true expression of selfless goodness when it brings the highest spiritual joy to the one who does it. True good always deeply and purely comforts the one who unites his soul with it. One cannot help but rejoice when emerging from a gloomy dungeon into the sun, to pure greenery and the fragrance of flowers... This is the only non-selfish joy - the joy of goodness, the joy of the Kingdom of God. And in this joy a person will be saved from evil and will live with God forever.

For a person who has not experienced effective good, it sometimes appears as a vain torment, unnecessary for anyone... There is a state of false peace from which it can be difficult for a person to get out. Just as it is difficult for a child to emerge from the womb into the world, so it can be difficult for a human infant to get out of his petty feelings and thoughts, aimed only at delivering selfish benefit to himself and cannot be moved to care for another person who is in no way connected with him.

This conviction that the old, known and familiar state is always better than the new, unknown, is inherent in every unenlightened person. Only those who have begun to grow, to embark on the path of hunger and thirst for the truth of Christ and spiritual impoverishment, cease to regret their inertia, the immobility of their dreams acquired in life and warmed by life... It is difficult for humanity to break away from the usual. In this way, perhaps, it partly preserves itself from thoughtless insolence and evil. The stability of one's legs in a swamp sometimes prevents a person from throwing himself headlong into the abyss. But more often it happens that a swamp prevents a person from ascending the mountain of vision of God or at least reaching the strong ground of obedience to the word of God...

Through small deeds done with the greatest ease, a person becomes more accustomed to goodness and begins to serve it reluctantly, but from the heart, sincerely, and through this he more and more enters into the atmosphere of goodness, puts down the roots of his life in the new soil of goodness. The roots of human life easily adapt to this soil of goodness and soon can no longer live without it... This is how a person is saved: from small things come great things. He who is faithful in the small is faithful in the great.

That is why I am now singing a hymn not to goodness, but to its insignificance, its smallness. And not only do I not reproach you that you are busy with good only in small things and do not make any great self-sacrifice, but, on the contrary, I ask you not to think about any great self-sacrifice and in no case neglect the little things in good. Please, if you want, become indescribably angry on some special occasion, but do not be angry with your brother over trifles in vain (see: Matt. 5, 22).

If necessary, invent any absurd lie you like, but do not tell lies to your neighbor in everyday life. This is a trifle, but try to do it and you will see what comes of it. Leave aside all considerations: is it permissible or impermissible to kill millions of people - women, children and the elderly; try to show your moral sense in a trifle: do not kill the person of your neighbor even once with a word, a hint, or a gesture.

After all, there is goodness and to keep yourself from evil...

And here, in the little things, you can do a lot easily, imperceptibly and conveniently for yourself. It is difficult to get up to pray at night. But in the morning, if you can’t at home, then at least when you go to your place of work and your thoughts are free, delve into the “Our Father,” and let all the words of this short prayer resonate in your heart. And at night, having crossed yourself, surrender yourself with all your heart into the hands of the Heavenly Father... It’s very easy... And give, give water to everyone who needs it, give a cup filled with the simplest sympathy to every person who needs it. There are whole rivers of this water in every place - don’t be afraid, it won’t run out, draw a cup for everyone.

Wonderful path of “small deeds”, I sing a hymn to you! Surround yourself, people, gird yourself with small deeds of goodness - a chain of small, simple, easy, good feelings, thoughts, words and deeds that cost you nothing.

Let us leave the big and difficult, it is for those who love it, and for us, who have not yet loved the big, the Lord, by His mercy, prepared, poured out small love everywhere, like water and air.”

Holy Scripture about God's Providence and b trust in God

“I know, Lord, that a man’s way is not in his will, and that it is not in the power of a man who walks to direct his steps.”(Jer.10, 23)

“Commit your deeds to the Lord, and your undertakings will be accomplished.”(Proverbs 16:3)

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding..In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.”(Proverbs 3, 5-6).

“Blessed is the man who puts his hope in the Lord and does not turn to the proud or to those who turn aside to lies.”(Ps.39:5);

"Cast sorrow upon the Lord"(Ps. 54, 23);

“I trust in God; I will not fear; what will man do to me?”(Ps.55, 12);

“My soul rests only in God: my salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock, my salvation, my refuge: I will not be shaken any more. How long will you lean on the person? You will be cast down, all of you, like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence” (Ps. 61: 2-4);

“Trust in Him at all times; pour out your heart before Him: God is our refuge.

The sons of men are but vanity; sons of husbands - lies; if you put them on the scales, all of them together are lighter than emptiness.”(Ps. 61, 9-10).

“Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you.”(1 Pet.5, 7)

It must be said unequivocally: the will of God is the only final criterion of good and evil in this world. The commandments of God are not absolute; the commandments of God are, in a certain sense, statistical. So, in the overwhelming majority of cases, in millions, billions of cases to one, killing from the point of view of Christianity is unacceptable, but this does not mean that one should never kill. We know that our holy leaders, the noble princes Alexander Nevsky and Dmitry Donskoy, acquired the Kingdom of Heaven, despite the fact that their swords were stained with the blood of many enemies of the faith and the Fatherland. If they had mechanically adhered to the letter of the Law, Rus' would still have been an ulus of Genghis Khan’s or Batu’s empire, and Orthodoxy on our land would most likely have been destroyed. It is also known that St. Sergius of Radonezh blessed the Battle of Kulikovo and even sent two schema-monks to the army.

These are the most striking and obvious examples, but one can say about almost any commandment of God that there are cases when it is God’s will to break this commandment in this particular situation. Here is the commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” that is, do not lie. Lying is a dangerous sin precisely because it is somehow little noticeable and little perceptible, especially in the form of deceit: to keep something silent, to distort something, so that it is beneficial either for oneself or for someone else. We don’t even notice this deceit, it passes by our consciousness, we don’t even see that it is a lie. But it is precisely this terrible word that the devil is called in the only prayer given by the Lord Himself to the disciples, “Our Father.” The Savior calls the devil evil. Therefore, every time we deceive, we seem to identify ourselves with an unclean spirit, with the spirit of darkness. Scary. So, you can’t lie, it’s scary. But let us remember the chapter with the remarkable title “about what should not lie” from the teachings of one of the pillars of Christian asceticism, Abba Dorotheus. Among other things, it says that not for the sake of self-interest, but out of love, out of compassion, sometimes you have to tell a lie. But, it is true, the saint makes such a wonderful reservation (remember that this reservation was made in the 4th century after the Nativity of Christ for Palestinian monks): “he should not do this often, but only in exceptional cases, once in many years.” This is the measure of the saints.

Thus, we see that the two-thousand-year experience of the Church, the experience of life in Christ, places the final criterion of good and evil not on the letter of the law, but on the fulfillment of the will of God (“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” - 2 Cor. 3:6). And if there is the will of God to take the sword and go to defend your people, your loved ones, then fulfilling this will of God is not sin, but righteousness.
And so the question arises with all its severity: “How to know the will of God?”

Dmitry Belyukin. “His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II at Lake Gennesaret.”

Of course, knowing the will of God is a matter of life and cannot be exhausted by any brief rules. Perhaps, Metropolitan of Tobolsk John (Maksimovich) illuminated this topic most fully among the holy fathers. He wrote a wonderful book, “Iliotropion, or on the conformity of the human will with the Divine will.” "Iliotropion" means sunflower. That is, this is a plant that, turning its head behind the sun, constantly strives for light. Saint John gave this poetic title to his book about knowledge of the will of God. Although it was written more than a century ago, it is nevertheless a surprisingly modern book, both in language and in spirit. It is interesting, understandable and close to modern people. The advice of the wise saint is quite applicable in conditions of life that have radically changed compared to recent times. The task of retelling “Iliotropion” is not set here - this book must be read in its entirety. We will try to offer only the most general scheme for solving this most important issue for the salvation of the soul.

Let's consider this example: here in front of us is a sheet of paper on which a certain dot has been placed invisibly. Can we immediately, without any information, by “pointing a finger,” so to speak, determine (essentially guess) the location of this point? Naturally - no. However, if we draw several visible points in a circle around this invisible point, then, based on them, we can with a high probability determine the desired point - the center of the circle.
Are there such “visible points” in our lives with the help of which we could know the will of God? Eat. What are these dots? These are certain methods of turning to God, to the experience of the Church and to our soul on the path of man’s knowledge of the will of God. But each of these techniques is not self-sufficient. When there are several of these techniques, when they are combined and taken into account to the necessary extent, only then we - with our hearts! - we can know what the Lord actually expects from us.

So, the first “point”, the first criterion is, of course, Holy Scripture, directly the Word of God. Based on the Holy Scriptures, we can quite clearly imagine the boundaries of God’s will, that is, what is acceptable for us and what is completely unacceptable. There is a commandment of God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind...thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). Love is the final criterion. From here we conclude: if something is done out of hatred, then it automatically falls outside the bounds of the possibility of God’s will.

What are the difficulties along this path? Paradoxically, what makes divinely inspired Scripture a truly Great Book is its universality. And the flip side of universality is the impossibility of unambiguously interpreting Scripture in each specific everyday case outside the colossal spiritual experience of life in Christ. And this, sorry, is not said about us... But, nevertheless, there is a point...

The next criterion is Sacred Tradition. This is the experience of the realization of the Holy Scriptures in time. This is the experience of the holy fathers, this is the experience of the Church, which for 2000 years has been searching for the answer to the question of what it means to live, fulfilling the will of God. This experience is enormous, priceless and practically provides answers to all life’s questions. But there are problems here too. Here the difficulty is the opposite - discreteness of experience. Indeed, precisely because this experience is so vast, it includes many different options for solving spiritual and everyday problems. It is almost impossible to apply it in specific situations without the grace-filled gift of prudence - again, extremely rare in modern life.

Some specific temptations are also associated with the book teachings of the holy fathers and elders. The fact is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the advice of the elders relates to a specific person in the specific circumstances of his life and can change as these circumstances change. We talked about the fact that God's providence for the salvation of man can be different. And why? Because, as a rule, a person does not follow the direct path - the path of perfection - due to his weakness (laziness?). Today he did not do what he was supposed to do. What can he do? Die? No! In this case, the Lord provides for him some other, perhaps more thorny, long, but equally absolute path of salvation. If he has sinned, and violation of God’s will is always a voluntary or involuntary sin, then this path of salvation necessarily lies through repentance. For example, today the elder says: “You should do this and that.” And the person avoids fulfilling the spiritual order. Then he again comes to the elder for advice. And then the elder, if he sees repentance in him, says what he should do in the new situation. Says perhaps the opposite of the previous word. After all, the person did not follow the previous advice, he acted in his own way, and this radically changed the situation and created new - primarily spiritual - circumstances. Thus, we see that the individuality of the advice of the elders in specific cases of life is an objective obstacle to the fact that one can simply say: “Read the advice of the elders, follow them - and you will live according to the will of God.” But this is the point...

The third criterion is the voice of God in a person's heart. What is this? Conscience. The Apostle Paul said surprisingly and comfortingly that “when the pagans, who do not have the law, by nature do what is lawful, then, not having the law, they are a law unto themselves, they show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience testifies... "(Rom. 2:14-15). In a sense, we can say that conscience is also the image of God in man. And although the “image of God” is a complex concept, one of its manifestations is the voice of conscience. Thus, the voice of conscience can to a certain extent be identified with the voice of God in a person’s heart, revealing to him the will of the Lord. So, it is very important for those who want to live according to the will of God to be honest and sober in hearing the voice of their conscience (the question is how capable we are of this).

Another criterion, the fourth (of course, not diminished in importance, because all points in the circle are equal) is prayer. A completely natural and obvious way for a believer to know the will of God. I'll tell you an example from my life. There was a difficult period for her: there were so many problems concentrated, so much thinking - it seemed that life had reached a dead end. There is some kind of endless labyrinth of roads ahead, where to step, which way to go - it’s completely unclear. And then my confessor said to me: “Why are you wise? Pray every evening. There is no need for any extra effort - say a prayer every evening: “Lord, show me the path, and I will go there.” Every time before going to bed, say this with a bow to the ground - the Lord will definitely answer.” So I prayed for two weeks, and then an extremely unlikely event occurred, which resolved all my problems and determined my future life. The Lord answered...

The fifth criterion is the blessing of the confessor. Happy is the one whom the Lord allows to receive the blessing of the elder. Unfortunately, in our time - “the elders are taken away from the world” - this is an exceptional rarity. It’s good if you have the opportunity to receive the blessing of your confessor, but this is also not so easy, not everyone now has a confessor. But even in the first centuries of Christianity, when people were rich in spiritual gifts, the holy fathers said: “Pray to God to send you a person who will guide you spiritually.” That is, even then, finding a confessor was a definite problem, and then it was necessary to especially beg for a spiritual leader. If there is neither an elder nor a confessor, then you can receive a blessing from a priest. But in our time, a time of spiritual impoverishment, one must be quite sober. You cannot follow the principle mechanically: everything that a priest says is necessarily from God. It is naive to assume that all priests can be confessors. The Apostle says: “Are all Apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are everyone miracle workers? Does everyone have gifts of healing?” (1 Cor. 12:29). One should not assume that the charisma of the priesthood in itself is automatically the charisma of prophecy and clairvoyance. Here you must always be careful and look for such a spiritual leader, communication with whom would bring obvious benefits to the soul.

The next criterion is advice from spiritually experienced people. This is the experience of the life of a pious person and this is our ability to learn from a good (and maybe negative - also experience) example. Remember how in the movie “The Shield and the Sword” someone said: “Only fools learn from their own experience, smart people learn from the experience of others.” The ability to perceive the experience of pious people, communication with whom the Lord has given us, the ability to listen to their advice, find in them what is necessary for oneself and rationally use it - also a way of knowing the will of God.

There is also a very important criterion for determining the will of God. The criterion that the holy fathers talk about. So, the Monk John of the Climacus writes about this in his famous “Ladder”: that which is from God pacifies the human soul, that which is against God confuses the soul and brings it into a restless state. When the result of our activity is the acquisition of peace in the soul in the Lord - not laziness and drowsiness, but a special state of active and bright peace - then this is also an indicator of the correctness of the chosen path.

The eighth criterion is the ability to feel the circumstances of life; perceive and soberly evaluate what is happening around us. After all, nothing happens for nothing. A hair from a person’s head will not fall without the will of the Almighty; a drop of water will not roll down, the twig will not break; no one will come up and insult us, and will not kiss us, if this was not allowed by the Lord for some kind of admonition of us. This is how God creates the circumstances of life, but our freedom is in no way limited by this: the choice of behavior in all circumstances is always ours (“... the will of man that chooses...”). We can say that living according to God's will is our natural response to circumstances created by God. Of course, “naturalness” must be Christian. If the circumstances of life develop, for example, in such a way that in order to provide for the family it seems necessary to steal, then, of course, this cannot be the will of God, for this contradicts the commandments of God.

And another most important criterion, without which nothing else can exist - patience: “... with your patience save your souls” (Luke 21:19). Everything is received by the one who knows how to wait, who knows how to entrust to God the solution to his problem, who knows how to give the Lord the opportunity to Himself create what He has provided for us. There is no need to impose your will on God. Of course, sometimes it happens that you need to decide on something in an instant, do something in one second, accomplish something, respond. But this, again, is some kind of special providence of God, and even in these circumstances there will definitely be some kind of clue. In most cases, the most optimal way is to give the Lord the opportunity to reveal His will in our lives through circumstances so obvious that there is no escape from it. Pray and wait, being, as long as possible, in the state in which the Lord has placed you, and the Lord will show you His will for the future of life. In practice, this means not to rush into making responsible decisions (for example, Fr. I.K. advises newlyweds to “see the four seasons of the year” in the state of the bride and groom) and not to change their everyday position without a clear need: “Everyone remain in the rank in which whom he was called” (1 Cor. 7:20).

So, we have outlined those criteria, “points” - Holy Scripture and Tradition, conscience, prayer, blessing and spiritual advice, a peaceful state of soul, sensitive attitude to the circumstances of life, patience - which give us the opportunity to know God’s providence for our salvation. And here a completely different, paradoxical question arises: “Are we aware of it - why do we need to know the will of God?” I remember the words of an experienced priest, a fraternal confessor of one of the oldest monasteries in Rus': “It is scary to know the will of God.” And there is a deep meaning in this, which is somehow frivolously missed in conversations about knowing the will of God. It is indeed scary to know the will of God, for this knowledge is a colossal responsibility. Remember the words of the Gospel: “That servant who knew the will of his master, and was not ready, and did not do according to his will, will be beaten many times; but whoever did not know and did something worthy of punishment will receive less punishment. And from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required, and to whom much has been entrusted, from him will be required more” (Luke 12:47-48). Imagine: coming to the Court of God and hearing: “You knew! It was revealed to you what I expected from you - and you deliberately did the opposite!” - that’s one thing, but to come and humbly pray: “Lord, I’m so unreasonable, I don’t understand anything. I tried as hard as I could to do good, but things didn’t work out right.” What can we take from this! Of course, he did not deserve to be with Christ - but still, “there will be fewer beats.”

I often hear: “Father, how to live according to the will of God?” They ask, but they don’t want to live according to His will. This is why it is scary to know the will of God - because then you need to live according to it, and this is often not at all what we want. From a truly gracious elder, Father John Krestyankin, I heard such sad words: “They are selling my blessings! Everyone asks me: “What should I do?” Everyone says they live by my blessings, but almost no one does what I tell them.” This is scary.

It turns out that “to know the will of God” and “to live according to the will of God” are not at all the same thing. It is possible to know the will of God - the Church has left us a great experience of such knowledge. But living according to the will of God is a personal feat. And a frivolous attitude is unacceptable here. Unfortunately, there is very little understanding of this. Wailings are heard from all sides: “Give it to us!” Show us! Tell us how to act according to God’s will?” And when you say: “God will bless you to do such and such,” they still act in their own way. So it turns out - “Tell me the will of God, but I will live the way I want.”

But, my friend, the moment will come when God’s justice, burdened by our indolence in sins, will be forced to overcome God’s mercy, and we will have to answer for everything - both for indulging passions and for “playing with the will of God.” This issue must be taken very seriously. In essence, this is a matter of life and salvation. Whose will - the Savior or the tempter - do we choose every moment of our lives? Here you need to be reasonable, sober, and honest. You should not “play at knowing the will of God” by running around priests for advice until you hear from someone the “will of God” that pleases you. After all, in this way one’s self-will is subtly justified, and then there is no room for saving repentance. It’s better to say honestly: “Forgive me, Lord! Of course, Your will is holy and high, but due to my weakness I do not achieve this. Have mercy on me, a sinner! Grant me forgiveness for my weaknesses and grant me a path on which I would not perish, but could come to You!”

So, there is God’s providence for the salvation of every person, and there is the only value in this world - life according to the will of God. The Lord gives us the opportunity to understand the universal mystery - the will of the Creator to save His fallen creation. We just need to have a firm determination not to play at knowing the will of God, but to live according to it - this is the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about prudence - without it, knowledge of the will of God is impossible. And indeed, we talked about the fact that in specific life circumstances, only spiritual reasoning can correctly interpret both the truths of the Holy Scriptures, and the experience of the holy fathers, and everyday collisions. Mechanical adherence to the letter of the law outside of spiritual reasoning - for example, giving away property for the sake of achieving perfection (without ripening the soul for achievement; in fact, outside of humility) - is a direct path either to spiritual delusion or to falling into despondency. But the spirit of reasoning is not a criterion, it is a gift. It is not “mastered” by consciousness (like, for example, the experience of the holy fathers) - it is sent down from above in response to our prayer and, like any gift of grace, rests only in a humble heart. Let us proceed from this - and enough is enough.
And again let us listen to the words of the Apostle Paul: “Therefore, from the day we heard about this, we have not ceased to pray for you and ask that you would be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you would act worthy of God, pleasing Him in everything, bearing fruit in every work good and growing in the knowledge of God..."
(Col. 1:9–10).