Ebb and Flow

Beware of the drifting of your thoughts off into what you wish was. For that is fantasy, and fantasy destroys every good work of the present.

It presents before you the idea that the work set before you is indeed not your true work, that what is currently in your hands is a waste of time.

Above all, it says that God’s providence has abandoned you to this lonely isolation of meaninglessness. It makes you strive like the demons do, grasping up from their utter nothingness in the hopes that the can be something out of uncreation.

But they nor we are God. For St. John Chrysostom said, “It was You who raised us up from nothing, and when we had fallen away, raised us up again.” Do not mistake anything that you see for real life. Do not mistake any fantasy for real life either. Real life is the expedient heart to make haste toward God. It is only by fleeing under the shelter of the wings of the Almighty that purpose flourishes.  

St. Theophan writes to a young girl saying: It is necessary only to do everything according to the commandments of God. Just what exactly? Nothing in particular – only those things which present themselves to everyone in the circumstances of life, those things which are required by the everyday happenings we all encounter.

Therefore, it is a demonic lie, a false notion of hubris that would attempt to “elevate” us to what we would believe we are worthy of. Lies and deception! For all it does is lowers because of our self -exaltation for “he who exalts himself will be humbled.” 

We must follow the example of the Lord to find absolute fulfillment in life saying, “we are unprofitable servants who have only done our duty,” as He himself commanded us in the gospel of Luke. We need not have any special passion or calling. To live faithfully as a Christian is enough.