From the publisher
Archimandrite Andrey (Konanos) was born in 1970 in Germany, in Munich, into a family of Greeks who came from Epirus, a region on the border of Greece and Albania, part of ancient Hellas (according to one version, Epirus was the ancestral home of the Greek tribes, from where they settled throughout the Balkan peninsula and islands of the Aegean Sea).
Soon after the birth of their son, the Konanos moved to the city of Alexandroupolis, and in 1977 to the capital of Greece, Athens.
The future clergyman received his primary education at one of the best schools in Athens - the classical lyceum, after which he entered the University of Athens at the Faculty of Theology.
In 1999, he was ordained a deacon by the Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens and all Greece, a year later - a priest, and soon elevated to the rank of archimandrite.
What fuels the spirituality of Father Andrei? Of course - invaluable patristic experience, pilgrimages to shrines, indissoluble spiritual ties with the Athonite elders.
For many years, Father Andrei, already an experienced shepherd, hosted his own program “Invisible Transitions” on the Pan-Greek Orthodox radio station. This program was very popular with listeners and attracted a huge audience. The texts of radio conversations about Orthodoxy were compiled into several books published in different countries. One of them, “When Christ becomes everything to you,” was recently published by the publishing house of the Moscow Sretensky Monastery. Now a second one is coming out, with a title characteristic of Archimandrite Andrei’s attitude – “Don’t be afraid to rejoice!”
“Faith is a great thing. She is a living trust in Christ, His power, His wise Providence and plan for us, His love for us, for you”; “Seek God, and when you find Him, when you understand that He was the first to find you and love you, He is already in your heart, He is looking for you and wants you to open up to Him, so that He will enter your soul”; “The soul is always young when it is with Christ”; “God gives us the gift of love for a person, so that our soul leaps with joy,” says Archimandrite Andrei.
Truly so!
Is it possible to be happy without Christ?
When I talk with children at school, I see that some who have been influenced by the spirit of our era do not understand Christ's message, are far from the spirit of Orthodox teaching. One of them told me:
– Is it really possible that what you are talking about can only be experienced in church? Is it really the only place we can be happy? Can we be joyful only next to Christ? Only if we create a Christian family can we stand firmly on our feet and be calm, see the purpose and meaning of our lives, have peace? Doesn't this happen in some other way? Is there really no other way? Are the rest of us doomed?
And here different philosophies begin: everyone says what they have heard or read about, what they believe in, what they imagine.
The question now is not to object to them, to shout, to convince them, because in the end you understand that we are not talking about arguments here at all. There are arguments, it’s just that the young man’s mind uses his imagination very much, he too often deals with self-hypnosis, with a self-confident desire to try himself: “I’ll try this myself and achieve it in a different way! I don’t want to do what you tell me!”
If we delve into this mood, we will see that it is a manifestation of selfishness, because it states: “I will prove that I was right!” Do you know what I answer in such cases? “I have nothing to answer.” And often I even like this powerlessness of mine, this ignorance, this poverty of mine. Well, I just have nothing to say. I don’t want to seem smart by saying wise things, but I want to do something completely right - not talk. It's right. I have nothing to tell you. But I can still tell you something.
***
If you really think that away from Christ you can create a good family, live happily, calmly, firmly, then when ten or fifteen years have passed and you have already grown up, when you really do something in life, you achieve success, start a family, probably , and you will have a profession, then find me with your wife and children, if I am still alive, and tell me:
- Here we are. This is my wife, and these are my children! Do you remember once telling me that only next to Christ will I be happy? And I am completely happy away from Christ! Here is my wife, this is my first wife, here are my children, and we are so attached to each other, so joyful, and I feel such a charge of peace and happiness that I cannot even describe to you!
I want to see your face then to be convinced of this, so that your joy and happiness will convince me. Because now, at school, all this is not serious: we speak in aphorisms, we say some empty words, and everyone considers himself smart. Everyone has different opinions, different theories. "I believe in it". - “But I have a different opinion. I've read other books that have other philosophies." - “But I’m generally an atheist and don’t believe in anything!”
***
But in life there are some situations, some circumstances in which it is tested whether what you believe is true or not. So far this all sounds good. But when the hour of illness comes, the temperature reaches forty degrees, when the hour of the intensive care unit comes, when the hour of a terrible earthquake comes in your life - an existential, psychological, economic earthquake, some kind of crisis, whatever it is, something the unpleasant thing that shocks you all - only then will you see whether what you believed in, what you professed, what you were told about, or what you yourself thought, has the power of life, an invincible life that cannot be crushed by anything.
And not so that we develop theories, filling our stomachs well and feeling great. Then it’s easy to philosophize and say, for example: “There is no God, there is nothing! Hey people! Eat and drink! Why are you fooling yourself?” No, you go tell someone in the intensive care unit that there is no God! It will be much more difficult to convince him of this. It will be much more difficult for him to agree with this.
In the hour of illness, the moment of truth comes for a person. When we were doing well, we weren't real. What I am doing now is not the moment of truth in my life. Now I'm talking. I'm not my true self right now .
. This is me, but not to the extent that I can be myself in a particular situation. That is, during some quarrel, conversation with another person, in practical cooperation. You know what I mean? In practice, not in theory. Now I'm just saying. But what I am talking about still needs to be experienced in specific circumstances.
So can anyone tell me:
– I live without God and am very happy!
Fine. And when, five days later, it turns out that his car was stolen or his mother died (I’m giving extreme examples so that you can see what these words are worth), then let him tell me:
– What I believed in, and still continue to believe in! These are not empty theories, I feel their power! Even though my child died, what I believe in strengthens me and makes me strong. I can withstand everything and move forward in life!
Because in words, I myself do it first - I say. We speak only words. However, when the hour of temptation and testing comes, then the question arises, then it is revealed what we are and what we believe.
I told the students we were talking to:
– In life you will actually see whether you can be happy without Christ! If you can, then be! I'm not lurking around the corner when you fall to gloat! For me, the joy is not that you fail and that I then push you against the wall and triumphantly say: “Aha, well, have you seen? I was right! I won! Here's another one that fell and failed! And all because you didn’t listen to me!”
Can your philosophy, ideology and worldview defeat death?
No! The question is not whether I push you to the wall or whether you push me. Don’t worry, there is someone who wants to push us all against the wall, and not just push us, but drive us completely into the ground. This is death, the common enemy of all people, a huge funnel eager to devour and suck everything into itself. Who will defeat this enemy? Who will push him to the wall? Can you do this? Can your philosophy, ideology and worldview defeat death? That is the question.
If you can do this and have seen people who lived like this and overcame corruption and death in their relationships, in their family, then follow them! But I didn’t see it. I saw only happy families in the sense in which some people say: “We don’t need to be close to the Church in order to have a good home and a quiet life!”
Archimandrite Andrey (Konanos)
I agree, I have seen this abroad and in some places in Greece, and in general there are many good families in the world, calm, quiet, noble, with good manners. But I didn’t say that everyone else is some kind of cannibal, that they will eat you, but when are they like that? When they have money and are prosperous, when they are healthy and laughing. Everything is going well for them and they are sticking it out. However, I did not see that earthquake that I spoke of coming and they would withstand it. When the earthquake starts, these noble, decent, etc. people whom we admire today will disappear somewhere. Because their happiness only lasts until now, and then it disappears, that’s it!
We're fine when we have money in the bank. Everything is fine when we are healthy. But when I hear that I am in danger, that my health has deteriorated and illnesses, chemotherapy, hospitals begin - everyone has their own problem, and you have your own - then you say: “Where is everything that I believed in?” , where is the power that I said I had? Where did it all go? He was gone.
We are weak. This is true. This is a truism. The Church for twenty centuries speaks about the path of Christ, which to us who live well now seems nonsense. But this path, however, was chosen by people who walked it to the end, became happy and defeated pain, decay, death, emptiness, loneliness, fear of nothingness, all these things.
“I want to ask you something,” one person said to me, “do you think that if I get married and I don’t have any connection with God, can I be happy?”
Okay, maybe you are full of nobility, you respect your wife, she respects you, you live well. I have not said and I do not pray that anything bad will happen to you.
– Then what’s the problem? - you will object to me.
The problem is that, firstly, this connection without Christ is a human connection. Secondly, over time, the connection becomes outdated and begins to decay. Thirdly, your beloved will leave you a little later, and you will leave her. There is death. And how can you bear the thought that this person whom you love and who loves you so much will one day lie in the ground? Death will appear, separate you, and you will no longer be together. How can we avoid this? How do we defeat death?
You will object to me that this will not happen soon. How soon? You, listening to me, are young now, but there are people next to you who are listening to the same words and are just going through this. They shake their heads and say:
- Yes, she really died! I lost her! The end is approaching!
You are young, you are happy and say that your future is ahead of you! But the other sees that in this relationship, which begins without Christ, there is a black horseman standing in your way, who waves his black handkerchief at you and says:
- Well, hello! Come here! So you are coming to me, and you both are coming to me!
You think you will live well, but behind it all there is death. How do we defeat death so that this connection does not remain purely biological, purely earthly, purely worldly, just a way of survival? Is this our goal - for us to “live well”, without quality of life, without depth, without eternity? That is the question.
How will we defeat death and decay? Have you thought about this? Have you thought about how this love, this eros, this connection and giving, this unity that you feel in this moment will continue? No matter how much you pretend and forget (and I’m sure: somewhere deep inside you know this), but your connection has an expiration date.
– How long will we be together?
And the other one answers:
- All life!
That is, up to eighty, ninety, one hundred (!) years. Yes, but my heart longs for eternal love, wants eternal tenderness, wants eternal understanding.
***
We don't rejoice when others fail. Failure simply confirms that what Christ said is the truth and not a myth. Just like the fact that what the world talks about and impresses with is just some forms, aromas of fruits, which then rot, decay, and die. What you are talking about are theories, but what I am talking about is the life experience that I observe in the confessions of hundreds of people, spouses who come and ask for help. We are picking up the pieces of relationships between people who are far from Christ.
However, let us not tell the truth only half, because someone will object: “That is, is everything perfect near Christ?”
When you are near Him, yes, everything is perfect. There are problems, but problems of a different nature, with a different charm, with a different charm, which turn out to be good. These problems make the soul feel sweet, because it is together with the person it loves. A Christian knows how to rejoice, and suffer, and have problems, and be tormented, everything. And those who are far from Christ do not know what they are doing. He does not know how to rejoice or be happy. And when a trial, death or life shock comes, he breaks down: he gets sick, goes crazy, or runs to doctors and priests, looking for something to rely on, where to find support and get help.
Listen, here's what I'm proposing. Let's see how this whole story began. It would be good for us to look back to the beginning, to the very beginning of the world, when God began human relationships. To see where the problem lies. In other words, the marriage is going through some kind of crisis, some kind of problem. Where is this problem?
I’ll say right away, so as not to confuse you: the problem of all problems is the same. "So simple? - you will object. “Aren’t you going to list for me: one, two, three?” No. She is one. It's very simple. I am not so eloquent and cannot speak to you in a high style, but I think so because I believe that God Himself does not want to confuse us when solving our problems.
There is only one problem, namely, we do not let God into our lives. This is where it all begins. This is the first crisis of a person in his relationship with God, and only then come all other crises: civilizational, environmental, economic, crisis of human relationships, professions. This is where it all starts. I think so. Don't you agree? Everything else we talk about are minor problems, symptoms.
For example, what comes first: a cold or a runny nose? However, you complain: “My nose is running.” The problem, however, is not that your nose is running. Your nose is running because there are germs, viruses, etc. in your body. And you blow your nose and say: “This is a problem, yes!” And to prove it, you show me a handkerchief. And I'm telling you: that's not the problem! This is not the problem, it starts elsewhere. Therefore, let's see how it all began, that is, what entered our lives, poisoned it, and with it poisoned everything else: our relationships, nature...
There is only one problem - if we make peace with God, everything else will fall into place. That is, a balanced person is the same everywhere, just like an unbalanced person. I’ll give you an example: someone cannot claim that they are completely happy in their family, at home, and at the same time not take care of nature, the environment and set fire, steal and destroy. It doesn't happen that way. A healthy, truly healthy, real person is like that everywhere, he is not real in part. He cannot be good in one area of life and bad in another. You will be good everywhere or bad everywhere. Life is interconnected. Everything is one and connected.
Don't let grief break you. Archimandrite Andrey (Konanos)
Please don't worry about this problem. She will make up her mind and everything will pass. You will come out of the predicament you are in now. These days are hard, and your torment is great. I'm trying to talk to you, but it's difficult because I know the pain you're going through right now. In one moment, the direction of your entire life changed completely.
For a long time - days, months, years - you are happy. And suddenly something starts to happen: bad news appears, some relationship collapses, you find out that you are sick - all this begins to destroy, crush you, and you become despondent. I understand that you feel bad. You talk about it yourself, you feel it yourself. My strength is meager, but I call on the great Power of God, His great Love, His Grace and Promise for help. He promised us that He would be with us every moment of our lives and would help us if we asked Him for it. And we all pray to Him to protect us, intercede for us and return to us the joy that we had.
Happiness is the most important sign that there is always spiritual freshness in your life, your soul. When you are happy, inspired, when you are full of life, inspiration, when you are not afraid of anything, you wake up and see that everything is beautiful - this means that you have come into living contact with God; you touch Him, and life-giving forces appear in you.
God is the Source of life. When you touch Him, you take power from Him. In other words, when you are happy, joyful, in a good mood, when you are full of life, when you want to live, it means that you feel God and His touch. And the proof of this is that you are happy, singing, or at least whistling. You are happy and you want to sing, dance, jump. Something enters your heart and makes you tremble with happiness, joy and inspiration. This means that God is in you.
But now it’s not like that. But in order to receive help, you need to firmly believe that God will help you. It takes strong faith, a firm confidence in the heart, and great hope in the power of Christ.
“Do you believe?” Christ often asked this question to people who needed His help. These people were sick, they were tormented by demons and various mental illnesses; they suffered from poverty, injustice, grave sins, and heartbreak. And these people wanted to be healed. They wanted to be free from grief, sadness, loneliness and tears. And the Lord asked them: “Do you believe?” What does it mean - I believe? This means that I open myself completely to Christ, trust Him completely and visualize my healing before it even happens. I feel it in advance, rejoice in it and enjoy it. And this “accelerates” the miracle, as if helping it happen faster.
When everything in your life is bad and you are in despair, when you constantly think about what didn’t work out for you, instead of believing in a quick solution to the problem, when you are completely immersed in thoughts about the tragedy that awaits you, about the hopelessness that comes when you are completely in despair, engulfing you - well, how can your life change in this case? How? What the Lord spoke about will happen: “According to your faith it will be done for you.” What you believe in will happen. You attract it to yourself.
Believe in Christ, in His power and love. Don't put yourself down so much. Don’t think that you were born to experience total disaster and complete failure, and then complain and despair all your life. No! This is not what you were made for. You were created to overcome difficulties, rejoice, and enjoy life.
Right now your mind is clouded because you have a problem. When you go through a difficult trial, you look at the world with eyes full of tears; and in suffering and darkness everything seems hopeless. At the same time, you can hear something completely new for yourself - something that would inspire hope in any other person in your place, would give the desire to live and rejoice. Anyone - but not you. You don't hear anything at this moment. Although just recently, when you felt good, were happy and joy reigned in your heart, your soul was the soul of a child who is happy with everything - even the rain outside the window, because it inspires creativity.
Then your soul was alive, and everything around you helped you grow upward. But now, when you feel bad, none of this works. The system is damaged and blocked. But you must not allow circumstances to break you or destroy you. Believe in Christ and help your soul to awaken and come to life. How? What you are doing at the moment is also a significant help to yourself. You listen to what others say about your problem, how they try to solve it, and how they try to rid you of it. The great gift is that we can think about what is happening to us, approach our difficulties, touch them and begin to peel them from ourselves, just as we peel the head of an onion - layer by layer. So you need to see what is happening to you.
What's happened? Look at the problem from a logical point of view, because your feelings are now gloomy and weakened. And at the same time they dominate your soul, and therefore destroy you. But by their nature they are holy, just like the mind.
So, think a little. Think logically about your problem, about what bothers you so much and destroys you from the inside. And no matter how bad you feel at the moment, I am sure that you will be able to reflect on what I tell you next. I will show you how to maintain your ability to reason logically when pain is about to consume you.
It is difficult for a person to cope with his problem alone - no matter what music he listens to to lift his spirits and no matter what advice he receives. It's good to give advice. Imagine, for example, that I burned my hand on the stove, and you are standing next to me and comforting me. This is wonderful. But no matter how much you console me, the pain will still go away only when the burn heals completely. Until then I will be in pain. It takes time for the hand to heal. Of course, your kind word consoles me. But all words come to an end, and now I look at my burn again, and a week or even two passes until the wound heals and stops hurting.
The thing is that under the pressure of this pain, “storms” and “misfortunes” your soul begins to soften. Try to look into the future in your mind's eye, in a month or two, or in a year. And think: “Now I am suffering, but time will pass, which, as they say, heals.” And it is true. Remember how much you went through in the past, how much you cried, what pain you experienced, how much you didn’t want to do anything. How did you go to work and say to yourself: “I’m quitting! I don’t want to work here anymore!” Or: “I don’t want to talk to my husband anymore, I don’t want to cook, I don’t want to do anything!” And although you had reason to say so, because that’s exactly what you felt then, days passed, months passed, time passed, and you began to come to life. For a long time, everyone saw you sad and in tears, until one day, while visiting, you smiled slightly. You heard someone's joke and smiled. And a year has passed - and now you are laughing heartily. You, who now (as then) tells me: “I feel so bad that I will never be able to laugh and enjoy life again.”
You're not feeling bad. It's your thoughts that make you feel bad. But in fact you don't feel bad! You face troubles, but you don't feel bad. Because when you say: “I feel bad!”, you seem to be saying that your soul is full of despair. But your soul is full of hope in Christ, full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which you received at the time of baptism - and the holy font contains many of His Gifts and life-giving Power.
The fruits of the Holy Spirit are love, peace and joy in your soul. Joy is always in you, it is deep in your heart, but your suddenly appeared problem has closed this joy from you. And that's why I almost killed you. But this problem lies on the surface. She is in your head, your thoughts; you see only her, and she saddens you, darkens your life and causes pain.
The Apostle Paul tells us about the fruits of the Spirit that the human heart contains. These fruits are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22). And all this lives in you. And deep down in your soul you are happy because you are a man of God, and the sorrows that we go through and that cause us so much pain come from our thoughts and experiences - and it is these thoughts and experiences that hurt, destroy and kill us.
And here the question arises: where is our spiritual view? After all, we are spiritual people.
Does God know what we're going through? You will now answer: “Well, yes, he knows, but so what?” But the question is not that He simply sees and hears. Isn't all this under His control? Doesn’t He arrange our lives, and didn’t He allow all this to happen to us? The moment this happened, didn't God say, “Let it be”?
When you get happily married, give birth to a beautiful, healthy child, when your life is filled with happiness, when everything is wonderful around you, this happens by God’s will or, as they say, by God’s favor, from the verb to favor (one of the meanings of this word is to allow something to happen , which seems kind and good).
But there is another will of God, which is called permission. God allows, allows this to happen. For example, some kind of incident, accident - car accident, etc. A car crashes, people are injured or even killed, and then someone says: “That’s what God wants.” Another person, having heard these words, instantly loses all hope and says: “What kind of God is this if He wants us to perish?” But no one here means that God wants this to happen and is happy about it. This is God's permission. God allowed this to happen. And it’s one thing to allow something to happen, and another thing to do it. Here one might ask: “Couldn’t God have prevented this? Couldn’t He have done something to prevent this from happening?” Yes, He could. But this is where we should stop. We don’t have to explain anything further, because we really don’t know and can’t understand what God “thinks.” We cannot comprehend His mysteries. And this secret is also closed to us. But we understand one thing: God knows what he is doing.
If you are in a lot of pain right now and don't want to think about such things, then this thought may not help you. But if you want, think about it. Think for comfort and say to yourself: “God sees what is happening to me. He thinks, He is watching me - He is nearby. God gave His consent to this, “signed” the document before it came into force, and said - yes! So this is no coincidence.” After all, nothing happens by chance in our lives.
Now, when you are in pain and crying, you cannot understand this. And this is natural, you have the right not to understand - no one reproaches you. But in five months, in a year, when you look back and remember what happened, about this pain, you will understand that in the end all this not only was not evil, but also led to good. Your heart has softened, become more sensitive, your arrogance, selfishness, nerves, pretensions and rudeness have decreased, and humility, on the contrary, has increased. After all, before, you may not have forgiven anyone or understood anyone. And now you are doing all this very well.
Now you don't understand this. And you will ask why I am telling you all this. And I say, as has already been said, to call for help your mind, which is now absent. You allowed your feelings - pain, despair, hopelessness - to dominate you, you allowed sadness to suffocate you. And, falling, you became mentally ill. And I give you my hand. More precisely, I give you the hand of Christ. Because if you grab my hand, we will both drown, because I will become just like you. So we both grab the hand of Christ and say, “Lord, lift me up!” and we remember that everything that happens in our lives does not represent any mystery to God.
I hope that your soul will become much easier if you understand: Christ knows everything about what is happening. And since the Almighty, Most Good, Wise, Great and Wonderful God knows about this, then I completely trust him - as a doctor when I need a serious operation. I'm scared, I see all this equipment and tools that look more like murder weapons - because they are sharp, they will cut me, and I will experience severe pain. The doctor will cut my body, my insides or even my heart, and my whole being screams within me: “This is unbearable!” But the mind says in response: “This is a good doctor, he only wants the best for you. You know him, and he promised to cure you." And what do I do after that? From thoughts I get down to business: I trust the doctor and don’t ask him anything else.
There is nothing random in our life. Any separation, when you are abandoned and left, is not accidental. Even if this is your fault, now we are not looking for those to blame and do not blame ourselves. And if it’s the other way around, we also won’t go to the offender and won’t quarrel with him, demanding an answer for everything. I’m telling you something else: what happened was not accidental. God saw to it.
Even if you made a mistake, you can return to the right path again. But in order for this to happen, you first need to calm down. And I'm telling you all this so that you calm down. Calm down before talking to a person who greatly upset you and with whom you had a fight - a husband, a child, a boss who fired you... You can’t do anything rashly, without thinking, when everything is seething and seething inside you, when your soul is full of indignation, bitterness, hatred, envy. In this case, no one is able to do the right thing. First remember everything I told you. And calm down. Let everything calm down in your heart.
The heart is like a lake: when the storm subsides, the waves disappear and you can clearly see the bottom. Elder Paisios told us this: “When there are waves on the sea, we do not go fishing, but wait until the sea calms down, and then we think about what to do.”
So it is with you. Grief suffocates you and doesn't let you think. Now you can't even pray. I understand you. I once told a woman when she was feeling very bad that she needed to pray. And she answered me: “In this state, I can’t even pray!” You really can't pray because grief has suffocated you. At such moments, try to sigh or even cry out a little and remember this simple thing: God knows what is happening to you. Everything that happens is under His control, and nothing will happen more than what He allowed. If God allows something, it happens and there is nothing we can do about it.
This means that all this is extremely beneficial for us, and we must surrender to His will and not resist where we can do nothing. You cannot resist God and what is inevitable.
Therefore, the happiest and most joyful people, as you have probably noticed, are those who rely entirely on the will of God. Moreover, if they need to change some circumstances in their lives, they do it, but without entering into arguments with God, but after they calm down and are able to act thoughtfully.
And sometimes we are in a hurry, and at such moments the only thing we want to do is call on the phone and say hurtful words. However, in this way we only worsen our condition. There is no need for haste here, because in this way a person can say a lot of unnecessary things and only complicate the situation.
To calm down, go and sit in your room. Let this day pass. He's not lost at all. This is the day when you work spiritually, when God, wanting your salvation, heals you through pain. It takes patience. Today you must be patient. And this day is not lost for you because, despite all your pain, today you become wiser and even, one might say, holier. Yes, yes, today you have approached holiness - what a great joy! Your soul is sanctified. And that's how you get there - through everything you're going through now. And then you will understand that although you and others have made mistakes, God knew about these mistakes and sins in advance.
So, you have committed some serious mistake or sin. Calm down. Now that you understand this, there is no need to despair. Instead, tell yourself, “God allowed me to make this mistake in my life. He allowed it to happen. I will probably get a lot of benefit from this too. At least now I know what kind of person I am.” Seeing yourself, recognizing yourself is a great success. And you are very lucky that you realized what a huge mistake you made. In other words, you have discovered something very important. “What did I open? - you say. “You say that I am very lucky, but I committed such a sin!” No, you are lucky because you saw your sin, understood it and realized it. Accept it, deal with it. Accept yourself as you are, accept your soul, your character. And when you calmly do this, you will remember that, despite your great sin, God loves you, and you will smile. Your face will light up with a smile, your soul will feel better, and you will say to yourself: “Yes, I am a very bad person, but when I am ready to begin to mourn my sin, God comes to me and says: “Yes, I knew that you were a sinner, and allowed you to live until today, when you can realize this and understand what a great sin you have committed.”
But when a person believes that he is not to blame for anything, but everyone around him is to blame, then he begins to contradict God. Wait! And you, too, do not rush, although other people are to blame for your pain. Remember what I told you earlier: God allowed this to happen. “What did He allow? For these people to take me like this and treat me badly? Others are to blame for all my troubles! It was they who treated me unfairly, they offended me, upset me, abandoned me!” Yes. Did these “others” end up in your life by chance? Didn’t the Lord, out of His love, allow all this to happen? If God had other plans for you, wouldn't He have prevented it? “So, am I doomed to constantly be a victim of such people - who ruin my life, mock me, offend me?” Well, if you say that, then you yourself are to blame for these words, I didn’t say anything like that. I told you to stop being outraged.
If it seems to you that everyone around you is offending you, that everyone is to blame for your misfortunes, that they make you feel bad, first do what you need to do in case of any difficulty: calm down. Calm yourself down! Calm down, remember that everything that happened was not accidental, that God allowed it to happen. And when you calm down, you will understand what to do next. Or will you stay close to these people and improve spiritually, learn to love them, because God wants you to continue to be with them. Or maybe now is the time to part with these people? And in this way you will get rid of many troubles, but in a completely different way. That's the difference. You will leave these people and will no longer be a victim - a person with whom you can do as you please. But you will leave without hatred and nerves, without anger and bitterness. That's what I'm telling you today.
First of all, feel God, His presence and Wise Providence. Feel His touch. And now you don't feel anything. Because it is impossible to feel this, to be aware of it and at the same time to worry so much and experience such hatred for other people. In this case, you seem to forget about reality. The most serious disease for a person is ignorance. That is, a lack of understanding of spiritual truth in our lives. What did the Lord say when He was crucified? “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing!” In those moments He understood what was happening. That the people crucifying Him do not know what they are doing. Therefore, there was no worry, hatred, or cruelty in Him. He saw that he was surrounded by a crowd of people who were in the deepest ignorance. Christ could not help but understand who was before Him. But the people themselves did not understand this. The Lord justified His children. Because He does not need to be angry with us in order to calm down, or hurt us in order to feel satisfied. And then it was enough for Him to understand us. “My children, I understand you. I am not angry, but I love you, I respond to your hatred with Love and I pray to the Father to also understand you and show mercy to you.” That is why Christ said: “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing!”
Let us, in our grief, when someone wronged us unjustly, understand that he did it out of ignorance. God allowed these people to come into your life and hurt you - this woman or that man who betrayed you, upset you, abandoned you and made your heart bleed. He allowed this suffering into your life - at home, at work, in the office... Is your pain somehow special? Yes, all difficulties are similar to each other. Some have illnesses, others have problems in relationships, family life, at work, while others have troubles with children, parents and other relatives.
When you calm down inside yourself, when you don’t think about how to take revenge, when you don’t make wrong decisions, then wisdom will appear in you and you will look at these things differently.
And if you start arguing with the offender, God will look at you and say: “Okay, didn’t I know what I was doing when I sent this person your way? So, now you’re swearing at Me too?” - “No, Lord, I’m not swearing at you!” - “No, you blaspheme Me, because I sent you this man. I allowed all this to happen in your life. Why? Because I wanted to teach you certain things.” - “What did you want to teach me, Lord? This man betrayed me because You wanted me to know what it feels like to be betrayed?” “I wanted to teach you the understanding that even if someone betrays you, you are still dear to Me.”
That is why, despite the fact that someone betrays you, you find the strength to rise. Your self-worth does not depend on how other people treat you. And we often expect support, encouraging words, promises from them - and that’s how we live, counting on it. And so Christ tells us: “Look, these people hurt you, upset you, so what, have you lost your value? Will you never get back on your feet? Aren't you a person? Don’t you have a soul – immortal, created by Me and very important to Me, even if someone betrays you?” This is how through suffering, through the pain that the Lord allows, you receive great benefits for yourself.
Consider this goodness. But before you see him, you again need to calm down, calm down. Now your feelings are killing you. You are nervous, crying, tearing your hair out, you want to bang your head against the wall and tear the pillow with your teeth - don’t do this. In such cases, someone breaks down the door, someone breaks the glass - but this is not a solution to the problem.
Something good must come out of something bad.
We all go to church and consider ourselves spiritual people, but when problems and difficulties arise, we turn out to be very bad students. This needs to be understood. I say this not to completely disappoint everyone, but so that we understand what we really are and admit it. Yes, we are like that. Our soul matures very slowly. And the fact that we need so much time to grow shows how far we are from God. If it takes you three weeks to heal from the grief that someone has caused you, it means that during those three weeks your heart was empty and you were not in touch with God. That is, that connection with God, which connected you with Him and gave you Divine energy and grace, was lost by you for three weeks. You were like a plane that was flying to an unknown destination and could not land because it had lost contact with the dispatcher. Or like a ship from which the shore is not visible, and therefore it cannot land and drop anchor.
So is our soul.
This is the difference between us and the saints. All the saints went through similar afflictions, but it took them much less time to come into contact with God again.
If you feel good now, but suddenly the phone rings and you find out bad news; or the person you love suddenly sends you an SMS with the words “I think we need to break up” - so, if these four words (I think we need to break up) can kill you, then at that moment you are far from God.
Until this day, it seemed to you that a sea of happiness surrounded you. And now you're wondering, "Why did God do this?" To show you that your happiness does not depend on whether someone leaves you or not. So that you don’t think that your soul cannot exist without this person. Will be able! Both with him and without him. Happiness is in your heart. And this happiness will not be given to you by any relationship, money, delicious dishes, houses, shopping... They will not. You have to find this happiness within yourself, and everything that happens helps you do this. After all, we usually cling to what dies, disappears and disappears - like a castle that a child builds out of sand. The child rejoices looking at him, but suddenly a wave appears, then another, even larger. The waves destroy the castle and the child begins to cry. Why, baby? It's just a house made of sand.
So are you. I found support in a tower of sand, but it is made of sand, and it will collapse.
Therefore, it’s one thing when you say: “We feel good together!”, and another thing when: “Without you, my life makes no sense.” When you like your job or car, when you love your husband and children, that’s one thing. But when you cannot live without all this, when this alone is your happiness and your whole life, this is something completely different. And all the blows that we receive in this life just show that those whom we loved and idealized, what we expected and what we were so attached to - all this is absolutely not EVERYTHING. Because if this was ALL, then it would not disappear without a trace, just as these sand castles disappeared on the shore of the sea of life.
So, from all these trials you can get a lot of benefits: to see the corruption of everything in life, to know the beauty of your own soul, to feel the strength of your heart and to understand that through pain God makes you better, and great joy awaits you in the future. But in order to receive this joy, you must become wiser, you must learn to act more correctly, walk more carefully and get less dirty along the road. And this way you will try harder in the future.
This is why most people who have experienced some kind of great grief tend to be very attentive. For example, one girl who dated a man who treated her very badly, after that she became more picky in order not to be disappointed in people.
This is the difference between us Christians and other people. Where others see only disappointment, we begin to be enchanted - by Divine Love, by the beauty of our own souls, by the strength that God gives us, by the reflection of the Glory of Christ in us. We feel that His Glory becomes our Glory, and thus we gain experience, wisdom, prudence, prudence, enlightenment - that is, everything that we so lack.
When the Monk Paul the Simple, arriving home, found his wife with another man, he, unlike some of us, did not need months and years to recover from his wife’s betrayal. If we were in his place, we would never forgive the betrayal; we could not bear it, accept it. On the contrary, we would feel humiliated, unhappy, betrayed, trampled. It would take us many years to calm down and release this poison from our souls. And the Monk Paul, a disciple of Anthony the Great, saw what his wife had done and said: “Don’t worry! Best wishes!" He left home, deciding to give his life to God and “find his first love” (i.e., the love of God). Of course, one should not think that the saint was not offended by his wife’s act. But this act did not break him, his soul was not crippled, and it did not take him years to smile again.
That's what I want to tell you. Your feelings, your pain have clouded your mind, confused your thoughts. In despair, you see everything in black. You have been worried for a very long time and, as you say, you haven’t smiled for years. But when you say that you haven’t smiled for years, it means that you haven’t touched God for years, and all this time you went to church and read spiritual books. So what now? Do you have contact with the Lord? Are you touching this Stream of joy, peace, happiness and smiles?
Let three years turn into two, two into one, a year into an hour. Smile quickly, quickly press the desired button, perform the “holy launch”. The saints were with God constantly - what does this mean? This means that they contemplated, felt Him, breathed with Him and therefore did not need a long recovery. If someone said offensive words to them, they melted them into the kindness of their heart, which was always happy, joyful and instantly “erased” everything unnecessary from their memory. No matter what they were called, no matter how they blasphemed them - they humiliated, and offended, and persecuted!.. But they almost did not listen. There may have been a wave or two on the watery surface of their hearts, but deep down they always felt joy. That's all. This is the difference between us and the saints.
Therefore, we should shorten the time of our grief, our sorrow and melancholy. They gave you an unfair “D” on the exam - well, of course, you worry a little, and then continue to study calmly. It’s the same in life: cry a little and continue to live with joy. You are upset, but let your grief not be long, but short.
Let us pray earnestly to God, because very strong prayer is needed here. It is necessary that a person really wants to say: “God, I ask You, help me hold on to You, think about You, feel You. Make it so that Your blood constantly flows in me and Your Spirit and Your Thoughts are present. So that other thoughts, intentions and states do not enter my heart. Let them all be only from You.” By saying all this to God, we begin to feel the love that comes from Him, His strength, honor and dignity.
And if someone comes and starts telling us something unpleasant, at that very moment we will turn to Christ. Then we will look again at the person who upsets us, but then we will immediately again turn our gaze to God. And no matter what they tell us and no matter how painful it may be for us, we turn to Christ again and again.
And let your soul perform such actions as quickly as possible so that you can be cheerful and cheerful. This is a great solution to all your problems.
I'm telling you all this because I saw today how upset you are. God willing, these words will help your prayer become even more ardent, and you will touch God, His Power and Love.
There will always be problems. Just remember what I told you today and shorten your time of sorrow so that the joy of God's presence will increase in your life.
Archimandrite Andrey (Konanos)
