-If we keep remembering the wrongs which men have done us, we destroy the power of the remembrance of God. But if we remind ourselves of the evil deeds of the demons, we shall be invulnerable.- Abba Macarius the Great

The man who obeys is in essence a man of faith. Christ is named in the Book of Revelation: ‘the faithful witness’. Likewise, the man who imitates Christ in obedience receives the Spirit of Christ and attains in this way to continuous prayer and stability of life.

For our Lord came for this reason, that He might change and transform and renew and recreate the soul which had been overturned by the passions…mingling with it His own Spirit of divinity… to make new men, anointing them which His own light of knowledge, that He might put in them the new wine which is His Spirit

“Gratitude is a virtue which pleases God more than all the other virtues. In response to it, He provides us with all things which we are unable to reach or obtain on our own. God allots His gifts to us according to the measure of gratitude that we show Him. Only those gifts for which we have given thanks to God become truly ours.” Elder Zacharias

Our mistake is that we expect those around us, that is, sick and fallen creatures, to fulfil our innate need for love, which is something that only God can truly satisfy. We are deceived when we expect to receive from men something that God alone can give us. He instilled in us the desire for love, and He alone can satisfy it. We will know Him through love and become like Him through love.

The more we’ve prepared, the more room we’ve made, the more we’ve suffered, the more we’ve loved, the more we’ve cried aloud- wept and lamented without restraint- the more we’ll have received God Himself. Needless to say, all of this remains hidden beneath a cheerful countenance, beneath a smile, beneath the depths of true joy, beneath an entire life that witnesses to God by its tranquility, love and truth, because we know that, no matter what happens, God for us is everything,