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Slavery of the Mind (Barriers to Repentance)

Barriers to Repentance 4/7

Slavery of the Mind

by Shery Abdelmalak

The human mind can be seen as a complex thing. By it, we move, live and have our being. Sound familiar? That description belongs to the Creator, not the creation. When I think of all the times I was stressed or upset or didn’t know what my next step was – it was because a negated God’s role in my life. I was doing so well on my own, but that does not last.

One of the devil’s greatest tricks to separate us from repentance is through the mind. It was the mind and human reasoning that convinced Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil that ultimately led to the fall of mankind.

Like most sin, sins of the mind start slow, small distractions during the mass, during prayer – an inability to concentrate. At this point, you will not feel separated from the Father and thus, will not feel the need to fight seemingly innocent thoughts. The very battle you fight to focus on God in prayer while life is going well will be the reason you hold your peace when times get tough, and they always do. Over time, the trust you place in yourself grows and although you might not notice, your priorities are shifted and He is no longer your main aim. The same life that has built up your ego has now knocked you down and you are left to pick up the pieces. The entrapment of the mind is a slow yet seemingly endless cycle of abuse, as you fall further away from Christ and His ability to deliver you from all evil. The doubt, the shame and all the tricks in between that the devil plays have convinced you that He will never take you back.

How could you forget how much He loves you? You’re His masterpiece. His finest work of art. One of His favourites. He has blessed you with so much yet these blessings seem hard to see through the storm. God’s biggest blessings come from our biggest mistakes. You don’t see it now but you will when it is all over. Alleviating your pain is not His aim. He wants to bless you, and to bless you abundantly. You are His child.

He is always anticipating your return. Don’t look to overcome your sin before you return to Him. Stop trying to reason your way out. If you think for long enough maybe you’ll find a solution, but you will more than likely fall further into confusion and shame. Look up, look to Him. Look at all He is. Stop looking back on your sin and look to who He can make you. You will never understand how He forgives but this is not for your understanding. Thomas Kempis says, “The humble person, though he suffer confusion, is yet tolerably well in peace; for that he rests on God, and not on the world.”God gave you a living and reasoning soul for His glory, but when it is misused, confusion takes hold and peace is lost.

While in a state of confusion and sadness, a common misconception of repentance is that it will only enhance these ill-feelings. This could not be further from the truth. If you are looking at your mistakes with self-pity, with sorrow, with guilt, with shame – this is not repentance. This is a fall further into slavery.

If we take the parable of the two debtors (Luke 7:41-43) and tweak it to show a debtor that was entrapped in guilt and shame, we can see how unlike repentance this path really is. In the parable, he left thankful, knowing that although he could not repay his debt, his slate had been wiped clean. To approach repentance with guilt and shame would be the equivalent of the debtor returning to the creditor just to apologise once more for his failure to repay his debt…

Creditor, “are you here to repay me?”

Debtor, “No, I’m just here to tell you how sorry I am that I can’t repay you, again”

“It’s okay, it’s already forgiven”

“No but you don’t understand. I’m really sorry”

This would lead to a frustrated creditor and a self-pitying and shameful debtor. We, as debtors, need to overcome the tricks of the devil and accept the beauty of God’s gift of grace to us that is salvation.

This can be so difficult to see if you are in state of slavery of the mind where confusion is paramount and problems seem endless. You are finally realising your sins and your weakness but do not be disheartened. You can never separate the creation from the Creator. Those weaknesses that cause you to fall into sin can be strengths when turned over to the Creator. Do not insult His creation but trying to redeem yourself on your own. As Mother Teresa says, “If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness, and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.”

Empty yourself of the thoughts that control you and be clothed with His blessings. HH Pope Shenouda III says the thoughts that control us are like flies. Shoo them away. Not every thought that comes to mind deserves contemplation. A thought turns into a feeling that turns into an action. If you knew the end result of a simple thought, it is unlikely that you would allow yourself to dwell on it. This however, comes with discipline and may become a life long struggle of faith.

Pray until you can’t pray anymore. Wrestle God in prayer like Jacob until the thoughts flee from you. Pray until you can recite the psalms in your sleep, like HH Pope Kyrillos VI. Pray with your whole body through prostrations so that you deny your entire being over to the mighty Hands of God. Pray to stir the unutterable groaning of the Holy Spirit to intercede for you and pull you out of the storm you are in. Glory be to our Almighty Creator forevermore.

How to Control Your Thoughts

How to Control Your Thoughtsby Fr Anthony Messeh

Reposted from http://www.franthony.com/blog/how-to-control-your-thoughts

Fr Anthony Messeh is an American Coptic Orthodox Christian living in Arlington, VA. The aim of his blog is to spread the message of a real, relevant and rewarding God.

That title is a bit misleading (but it sure is catchy isn’t it?). You can’t actually “control” your thoughts – at least not in the same way that you can control other things, like a blender or a remote control car or a group of dancing robots.

It would be great if you could, but you can’t. You can’t control every thought that comes into your head. Thoughts will creep in that you have no control over. For example:

Insecure thoughts: “I’m not good enough and ______ probably thinks I’m annoying.”

Fearful thoughts: “I’ll never be able to fix this or get to that point in my career, marriage, etc.”

Negative thoughts: “My life is so difficult and everything is working against me.”

Impure thoughts: (no explanation needed for this one)

Dealing with thoughts like these isn’t easy. It can be debilitating at times. It feels like you’re in round 4 of a 15-round sumo wrestling match with this guy. No matter what you do, the thoughts just keep coming and coming and coming…

Is there a solution? Is there anything we can do? Or are we destined to be slaves to our thoughts forever?

Jesus said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32

The solution to your thought problem is often the exact opposite of what you might think. The solution isn’t to REMOVE those pesky old thoughts, but rather to REPLACE them.

Imagine you have a 1,000 gallon tank of water. Imagine that it’s full to the brim and you want to empty the water of it. How would you do it?

You have two options:

Option A: try to pick up the pool and dump the water out (aka, the dumb way)

Option B: throw a rock in (aka, the smart/I-obviously-listen-to-Fr.-Anthony way)

What would happen if you tried the first option – to pick it up and dump the water out? YOU WILL FAIL. You will fail and you will be exhausted as well. That’s because trying to REMOVE the water doesn’t work.

But what would happen if you tried the second option – throw a rock in? A little water would splash out. And if you threw another rock in? A little more would splash out. And what would happen if you continued to throw rocks in there – one a day every day for 10 years?

ALL THE WATER WOULD BE GONE!

The same is true for your thoughts. Stop trying to remove your old thoughts and instead seek to replace them. How?

Below are four ways (or rocks) that you can use to replace those negative thought patterns.

1) TALK IT OUT

As long as your thoughts remain hidden inside your head, they have power over you. But once you let them out, they somehow become a lot easier to deal with.

2) READ A LOT!

Reading is the fastest way to put new thoughts in your head. For me personally, there is no more important habit than this. I believe that reading will bring more fruit into life – when done consistently – than just about any other spiritual practice. It certainly has for me.

3) PRAY, BUT NOT A LOT

There’s a good way to pray about your thought problem – “Lord, I surrender my thoughts to You and ask Your Holy Spirit to guide my thoughts this day.”

And then there’s a not-so-good way to pray: “please God help me to stop remembering my mistakes and thinking that I’m a bad person. I know I made mistakes but please help me to stop remembering them all the time – especially that one mistake that was just so awful. Please please please help me stop thinking about that mistake and how awful I am…”

Prayer is good, but obsessive prayer is not good. The kind of prayer you need is the kind that a) is THANKFUL, b) is TRUSTING, and c) PRAISING.

4) JUST SAY NO!

Learn to reject thoughts that you KNOW are not true and from the devil. JUST SAY NO! Say what Jesus said when His disciple Peter introduced a thought that He didn’t want/need to hear, “GET BEHIND ME SATAN! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” (Matthew 16:23)

Trust me, if you struggle with your thought life, you are not alone. It is something that everyone struggles with to some degree. Believe me, there’s help for you. You don’t need to live as a slave to your thoughts forever. But you must be committed to taking small steps every single day and being patient as those small steps add up to major changes in your way of thinking.

See more from Fr Anthony Messeh at http://www.franthony.com/

Forgiving God (Barriers to Repentance)

Barriers to Repentance 3/7

Forgiving God

by Shery Abdelmalak

Forgive God does not need to be said in theory. In practice, in a life full of tribulation and faith that is not yet fully formed, blame is misplaced. We would all love to say, like Job, “Naked I came from the womb and naked I shall return, blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Job, you lost your children, your livelihood, blessed be who?

While we should be aiming to bless His Name through tribulation the way Job did, sometimes we can’t find the strength to even stand, let alone praise God. As Christians, we are gifted with the knowledge of faith. No matter what we go through, we are assured of His grace and that good will come out of the seemingly hopeless. Giving glory to God when things go right is easy, what becomes difficult is giving Him glory when things are not so good. What should be glory turns into blame, into resentment, into despair.

It is His fault that your plans did not go the way you wanted. It is His fault that He’s going to give you more than you could ever imagine, but for now, you can only see two steps ahead of you. If you knew what His plans were, if you knew the reason why you are in the tribulation you are in now, you would be on your knees in awe and amazement of the undeserving Love He has bestowed upon you.

While the end result is what we strive for, during the thick of tribulations, where can we draw faith from? This is when it gets difficult to stand and pray when the One that could get you out of tribulation at the click of His fingers, doesn’t. When you can’t see what He sees. When you are not capable of understanding of what He can do. When you think He has forgotten you. When you doubt that maybe you’re not His favourite anymore. Maybe He’s busy. Maybe He doesn’t love you anymore. As absurd as these all sound, these are the things that get in the way of repentance.

Job’s wife spoke as any one of us would when she told Job to forsake the God that had left him with nothing. As much as Job’s wife is ridiculed for what she said, we need to be sure we are not saying the exact same thing when troubles come our way. God didn’t fulfil our plans? On to plan B. There is an elevation of faith and of spiritual maturity when we put our desires aside for nothing more than to be united with our Lord. There is beauty in seeking Christ for who He is and not what He can offer. We remember Job, not his wife, who remains nameless. We remember Job as he was filled with faith and patiently endured tribulation. You have a choice; to chase a life like Job that is credited to him for faith or at best, be forgotten, like his wife.

What is pivotal to the story of Job is the moment he questioned God. To this, God responded to him in a whirlwind of anger and rebuked him for questioning that His love could ever fail. For the emotional outburst that was Job’s wife’s moment when she lacked faith, Job responded gently. The same way God gently responds to our lack of faith. We were never called to follow Him blindly. In peaceful silence, He waits for us to return to Him. He waits for us to stop focusing on ourselves and focus back on what truly matters – a life with Him.

If God does not respond to you in a whirlwind like He did to Job, know that your faith is not yet fully formed. How else can He show you His love? When you are going through tribulation, know that He is reaching out to you. This is not the time for you to let go. Cling to Him for surely He is the only One holding you together.

Job had lost everything, he was condemned as a sinner by his own friends and felt that the God whom he served had also forsaken him. For the moment that Job looked to himself instead of looking up to God, he fell into deep despair. He started to believe that God owed him something. If we are ever struggling to forgive God it is because we have fallen into the same trap – looking to ourselves instead of looking up to Him. There is purpose to your pain. If you can’t see it, look harder, look up to Him and He will reveal Himself to you. How can we ever question Him when we don’t even know how wisdom enters the mind, or who has given understanding to the heart? (Job 38:34).

Repentance is key to ensuring the virtues and lessons God has instilled in the tribulation you are in are fought and won. In true repentance, we stop looking to ourselves. We let go of the entrapment of our minds and look to Him. We look to His perfection and spread the love we are filled with to those around us. To think that some kind of reconciliation between you and God is necessary because He has wronged you makes no sense. You are not living a life to fulfil your own desires. You are living for Him. Focus on Him and His children and you will never be shaken by tribulation. Where were you when God made the heavens? Who are you to question His plans? A faith formed through trusting God when everything feels like it is going wrong is what makes questions like these fade away to nothing.

He is doing what is best for you, all that is left for you to do, is to thank Him, repent and make sure that no lesson is gone to waste. Let us pray for a faith that only grows and is not shaken by the tribulations of this world. Glory be to God forever, Amen.

Searching for Hope

Searching for Hope

by Fr Anthony Messeh

Reposted from http://www.franthony.com/blog/searching-for-hope

Fr Anthony Messeh is an American Coptic Orthodox Christian living in Arlington, VA. The aim of his blog is to spread the message of a real, relevant and rewarding God.

HOPE. What is it? Where do I find it? How do I get it? And if I do get it, how do I keep it? Why does THAT guy seem to have so much of it and I have so little of it? Is there really such a thing as hope in my situation?

Of course we all know the “right” answers to these questions. It’s easy to rattle off some Bible verses and spew out a few stories and then declare “so just hope in God.” But do we really believe that? Do you really believe that?

The honest answer for me? Yes and no. At times, yes. And at other times, no. There are those times when life seems to be going well – not perfect, but at least moving in the right direction. Economy is up, career is progressing, and relationships are stable. Life is good. At times like that, it’s easy to talk about hope and tell others about hope as well. Hope is ours.

But those “good” times seem to occur much less frequently than the “bad” times don’t they? The economy seems to be down more than it’s up. My career has more bumps than I expected. And my relationships (or lack thereof) seem to be a constant source of stress and anxiety in my life. Where’s hope then?

Please don’t give me (or yourself) the “right” answer that we learned back in Sunday school. Don’t just tell me that we have to trust and believe and everything will be ok. Do you even believe that? I will be honest and say that I struggle with that at times.

Where is hope when you are standing at a grave with a mother who just buried her son?

Where is hope when you see a family with no money in their account, bills are piled up to the ceiling and then you hear that the dad just got laid off?

Where is hope when you’re lonely and God knows you’re lonely but doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it?

In the past, I’ve written about some of more abstracts element of hope, so today I want to focus on the practical components. I don’t want to DEFINE hope; I want to DESCRIBE it. Hope is too big to be defined, but it can be described – in both words and pictures.

1. Hope is a choice

The level of hope you experience in life is totally and completely up to you. No one and no circumstances can affect that. Let me draw you a picture.

Imagine a parallel set of train tracks that extends as far as the eye can see. Those tracks represent the experiences that we all go through in life – one is the painful experiences and the other is the joyful experiences. Every day we experience some pain and some joy as we walk down the road of life.

Now imagine looking out toward the horizon – look out as far as your eye can see. What will happen? What will you see? Can you still see two separate tracks? NOPE. You’ll only be able to see one. The two tracks appear to become one track only.

That is hope. Hope is not looking down, but looking ahead. If you look down at either one of those two tracks, you’ll be in trouble. Focusing on the joyful track only will lead to denying reality. Focusing on the painful track only will lead to depression. We don’t need to look down; we need to look ahead. That is hope.

Hope says that no matter what happens today, God is working all things together for good to those who love Him. Hope says that even though today you may see “good” and “bad”, there will come a day where you will see that BOTH of those tracks were needed to get you to where God wants you to be.

That is hope – not that everything is ok, but that God is working all things in order to make it ok one day. That is why I say that hope is a choice. No one can force you to look up and by the same token, no one can stop you from doing so either.

2. Hope is a person

There’s a beautiful prayer we say in the Orthodox church and we use it just before we read from the gospel. The prayer says: “for You are the life of us all, the salvation of us all, the HOPE OF US ALL, the healing of us all and the resurrection of us all.”

God is our hope. We don’t hope in the miracles of God or the grace of God or the mercies of God. WE HOPE IN GOD HIMSELF.

Said another way, hope is not based on the presence of your circumstances; hope is based on the presence of your God. Don’t tell me how bad your situation is; tell me whether or not God is in it with you or not. If He is, there’s hope. If He’s not, there’s no hope. Simple.

Let me draw you another picture. Imagine sitting in a pit – with the mud and mire all around – and then seeing a hand reaching down from above. That hand of is the Hand of God reaching down to rescue you and lift you up.

Now what’s hope? Hope is how tightly you grasp that hand. Some choose to hold lightly and therefore have little hope. Some cling with all their might and therefore have a lot more hope. The force and desperation and urgency with which you cling to that Hand – that’s hope. And again, no one can affect that except you.

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Psalm 42:5

They say that hope is the oxygen of the soul. I couldn’t agree more. Even though we don’t necessarily know what it is, we all know we need it. And now we know that it’s in our control to go get it.

Hurt is inevitable, but despair is optional. We cannot avoid hurt, but we can avoid hope.

See more from Fr Anthony Messeh at http://www.franthony.com

Forgiving Yourself (Barriers to Repentance)

Barriers to Repentance 2/7

Forgiving Yourself

by Shery Abdelmalak

God instructed us to forgive one another, but the forgiveness we have to offer others is largely dependent on the forgiveness we have for ourselves. He told us to love our neighbours as ourselves (Mark 12:21). But what if we don’t love ourselves? What if we’re held back by shame and guilt for the sins of our past? If we approach sin with regret, guilt and shame, these are all we have to offer to those whom we love most.

The world teaches us to approach a problem with possible solutions. This is very simple when applied to sin. You do a sin. You know it was wrong. You try to fix it. This is not how God asked us to approach sin. You may be able to overcome a sin on your own a few times but eventually you’ll get worn down. You’ll soon realised that the higher you reach, the further you’ll fall.

As morbid as this sounds, God teaches us to approach sin in a way the world will never understand. When you are resigned to sin and you come to Him in prayer, you may fall again but there is a comfort in knowing He is always there to pick you up – a comfort in knowing that He is not just a fall back but the very core of your strength. St Paul says, “I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me”(2 Cor. 12:9). If we can truly give the glory to Him, we know that our flaws and mistakes will work for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

Even by worldly logic, fighting sin on your own doesn’t make sense. Saint Moses the Black was one of the strongest men on Earth. The devil tried to physically fight him and so naturally, he fought back. He fought back, and was knocked down. The devil is stronger than the elites of this world. We need to shift our logic and stop trying to fight sin unarmed. There needs to be an understanding of where we truly stand in this world. If the only One stronger than the devil is God and He is able to crush Satan under your feet, how could you try to fight without Him?

Elder Mattaous says, “If someone is described as ‘humble,’ this is not, in my opinion, a characteristic of human nature, for how can dust be humble?Dust was taken from the ground, so if someone looks at dust, would he consider it to be pearls or precious stones?”

If you truly see yourself as dust, there would be no shame or guilt for sin. A curse of the modern era is oversupply. We no longer need to pray for our daily bread- it’s a given. Our lack of need extends to our lack of ability to see our own sins and even more to overcome them. We are largely self-sufficient, and so for anything we lack, we turn to ourselves before we turn to Christ.

In repentance, we turn over our weakness to Christ to be moulded as the Potter moulds a clay vessel. A clay vessel need not worry about the lumps and bumps that take a little while longer to be smoothed out, for in the hands of the Potter, all will be perfected according to His Image in due time.

“But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” (Romans 9:20). He has made no mistake. Your sins are for your ultimate edification and renewal in His image. They are not for you to fix, but to recognise your need for a Saviour who will deliver from all evil and the death of sin.

Sometimes we like the idea of repentance because we think that is how God forgives us; that we need to apologise before He can forgive or that a great display of prayer and almsgiving is what sways God to forgive us. While it may help you feel better about sins of the past, a broken and a contrite heart is all He desires. Before you were even formed in your mother’s womb, God sent His Son to die on the Cross in anticipation of the sins of the world. The father of the prodigal son did not wait begrudgingly for his son’s return. No, he ran out to greet him for he who was dead was alive again, he who was lost was now found (Luke 15:32). We need to realise that after we sin, God is not angry at us, the guilt you feel comes from knowing that you should’ve done of better. God doesn’t care that you fell, He just wants to you to get back up and renew your love for Him once more.

After His resurrection, Jesus asked Peter three times if He loved him in remembrance of the three times Peter publicly denied Him. For every time that Peter denied Him, he renewed his love for Him. Peter was overly zealous and believed in his own self. Through his repentance his zeal was renewed into godly zeal and an unshakable faith that would go on to convert the nations. Christ was imploring Peter to renew his love for him – all was forgiven but reconciliation had to be made. Peter had to put aside his guilt and shame and remember the One whom he loved more than the entrapment of sins past.

Let us pray that with every fall, we recognise and learn from our mistakes through repentance, and we are transformed according to His Love. Glory be to God, forever. Amen.

I Will Give You Rest

I Will Give You Rest

By Fr David Shehata

“In You I will find rest”. Jesus says, “Come to Me all you who labour and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest”. And He continues and says “come to Me… I will teach you and you will learn from Me… My yoke is easy and my burden is light”. These words are very comforting from the Lord, and the reason for this is that it comes from Jesus Himself, one who has authority and the willingness to help. This provides us a lot of comfort and rest. St Apollinaris, one of the early Church Fathers, posed a very profound question saying, “How is it that Jesus sometimes will say ‘my burden is light and my yoke is very easy’, but at other times, He’ll say ‘the path that leads to righteousness is very narrow and very difficult’?” Fortunately, St Apollinaris also answers this dilemma… those people who may be careless in their spiritual life… people who do not prioritise the Lord, or a Christian way of living, walk a very narrow path, one that seems very burdensome and difficult. And yet, for those of us who are zealous and do want to prioritise the Lord and live a Christian life, the task’s and instructions given to us by the Lord become easy and a pleasure to follow… become very light with Him.

Everyone carries a burden, whether it be work or family related. Make no mistake, despite the exclusively happy facades of people we may see on social media, we all have problems that burden us. Yet how is it, that some people walk through these problems, through life, being perfectly ok, while other people are destroyed by these difficulties? Truly, the common thread that runs through the people who get through their problems, and move from success to success, is this element of hope and faith in the Lord. The element of faith in this particular verse. When Jesus says to us, “Come to Me ALL..”, there’s no prerequisites. It’s not only come to Me if you think your worthy, or pray this many hours a day, or only if you come to Church for this amount of time… not at all. “Come to Me ALL, you who are burdened”.There’s a few stories that this reminds me of. One time Fr Thomas Hopko, a really beautiful man, said a story once, of a little girl with her father. Her father had given her a present… a necklace. And she loved it. It was a diamond necklace, fake of course, just made of plastic, but it looked gold… and so she loved this necklace. She thought it was so pretty and beautiful. And her dad used to put her to sleep. One time, as he was putting her to sleep he said to her, “Please give me this necklace” and she refused. So he said, “that’s ok, no worries”. Then the next night he was putting her to bed, and he asked again “can you give me that necklace?”, but she still replied, “no dad, I really love it… I don’t want to part ways with it”. So he said again, “that’s ok”. The third day he asked her and she started crying, she said “you know that I love this necklace, why are you asking me to get rid of it? Why you asking me to give it away? I really love it”. And so he said to her, “Don’t cry, I don’t want you to cry. Just give it to me when your ready, and I have something better for you”. She said, “but there’s nothing that could possibly be better that this”. He replied, “that’s ok, when you’re ready”. This kept going on for days and days and weeks. Until one day, as he was putting her to sleep, he asked, “can I have the necklace?” With tears in her she gave it to him. He said, “why are you crying”, and she responded, “you know why I’m crying, I really love it”. He said, “well maybe you won’t be crying anymore after you see what I have prepared for you”. She still said, “there could be nothing better than this necklace”. So out of his pocket, it was there the whole time, he pulled a jewerelly box. Inside, there was a real gold necklace, the real deal. And he gave it to her and said, “I had this ready for you all along”. In a way, it makes us realise that many times we’re going through burdens and problems, and it feels like we are the ones who need to fix the problem… we are the ones that need to solve it. And I feel, that these are the times we have to let go and tell the Lord, “You are the one who is going to fix this problem, it’s Your burden, not mine”. Fr Thomas Hopko once said that when we’re praying to God, we tell Him, “Lord we are weak, we’re rubbish… but we are Your rubbish. We are weak, but You are the one Who can draw out the strength in our weakness”.

Forgiving Others (Barriers to Repentance)

Barriers to Repentance 1/7

Forgiving Others

by Shery Abdelmalak

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us

How easy it is for us to pray this daily while being detached from our brothers and sisters. By praying this, God has lowered Himself to our level so that He may elevate us to His.

He won’t forgive until I forgive? The thought of this question once distressed me. I know that my ability to forgive is flawed by my human nature, but My Lord, in His perfection, does not struggle to forgive the way I do. It’s not a matter of CAN He forgive. He can forgive, and He does. Even before you come to Him, He has forgiven you. What is not possible is to be united with God while we are not united with one another. Just as the father of the prodigal son waited earnestly for his son’s return, God waits earnestly for us to accept His forgiveness and to be reconciled and renewed in Him once more through repentance.

If forgiveness equates to love, then a lack of forgiveness equates to hate. Where there is hate, God could never co-exist.

A truly repentant heart does not struggle to forgive others. A repentant heart knows its own sin and knows that although they are not the true imitation of Christ, they strive to be more like Him daily. When you are just a work in progress yourself, you can forgive and pray for the faults you find in others, no matter how hurtful the sin may be. God is working in them, just as He works in you, even if it may seem like some require more work than others.

Often, we can see a fault in a person and this may drive us away from them. But to truly love with the spirit of repentance is to pray for them, to pray that God reveals the riches of His glory to them. To pray that they are strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. To pray that Christ dwells in their hearts so they may comprehend the width, the length, the height, the depths of the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge (Ephesians 3:16-19). That level of love. Not trust, not a return to what your relationship once was, just Love.

We can love with worldly love but what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them (Luke 6:32). This kind of love is limited to worldly understanding. Anyone can love someone that has given them enough reason to love them. But we strive for Limitless Love that comes only from above. The type of love that suffers long and is kind. That does not envy nor parade itself nor is it puffed up. Does not behave rudely or seek its own. Does not envy. Is not provoked. Does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth (1 Cor. 13:4-6) – A Love that would lay down its life for its brethren. A Love like this does not concur with human understanding, but neither does the gift of grace in our salvation through Christ. This is the love that forgives unconditionally. Without it, there is no place for forgiveness.

Our lack of forgiveness generally comes from a good place. You were wronged. You were hurt. You didn’t deserve it. You are a good person and a bad thing happened to you that you couldn’t prevent. But Jesus was a good person, too. Jesus was wronged. Jesus was betrayed. Those that anticipated His coming for their salvation betrayed Jesus. More still, His own friends betrayed Him. Jesus was sacrificed, for a sin you and I committed. Now you want to go to God and tell Him that what was done to you was too much? God, being the kind and compassionate God that He is, surely He would understand that there is no way forgiveness is plausible. After everything Jesus did for you, you can forgive. Not for the sake of the one who harmed you, but for His.

There is a hurt however, that is far beyond my own understanding. I by no means think that you should just get over it because Jesus went through worse. Jesus did go through worse, not so you could feel ashamed when you struggle to forgive, but so you know that no one can offer you empathy and compassion quite like Him. The very fact that you come to Him when you cannot forgive is credited to you. Some wrongs may take weeks or months or years of prayer but do not be disheartened, but rather, put on the whole armour of God that you may stand against the wiles of the devil (Ephesians 6:11). Fight to forgive. Don’t pretend like everything is okay, don’t pretend that you were not hurt, don’t pretend that you don’t remember the hurt because you cannot handle coming to terms with what it means to you.

Robert Dean Enright says, “When unjustly hurt by another, we forgive when we overcome the resentment toward the offender, not by denying our right to the resentment, but by trying to offer the wrongdoer compassion, benevolence and love (2).” Fr David Milad (2015) explains this as forgiveness through an acknowledgement of what was done to you and the conscious decision to positively work through the situation in order to grow spiritually. Compassion, benevolence and love is the goal of repentance. This really is all He ever wanted from us – to spread His love through forgiveness to His children. “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.“ (Luke 6: 35)

When struggling to forgive another, it is important not to lose sight of what you can control – your own sins and your own repentance. To repent, in its most basic form of the word, is to say you’re sorry. Even when you are stuck in the hurt of sins committed against you. If so, start by saying you’re sorry. Say you’re sorry for your blind ignorance that is yet to see its own sin. Start small and ask Him to reveal your sin to you. That small step you take toward repentance, is one small step that you have taken toward Him. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). You will feel His peace the closer you draw to Him, so for that reason, repent.

May we repent so that we can pray in all sincerity, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Glory be to God forever, Amen.

Confidence in Humility

Confidence in Humility

by Bethany Kaldas

‘He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.’

~Micah 6:8

I always used to think that humility and confidence contradicted each other. After all, confidence seemed far more like a characteristic of pride—it’s the proud who are so confident in their own knowledge that they can’t admit that they’re wrong, it’s the proud who are so sure of their own importance that they butt into things they shouldn’t.

In my mind, the humble were the reverse—they doubted their own wisdom to the point that they never enforced their opinion on anything, they lacked so much confidence in their abilities that they never admitted to doing anything well and will vehemently deny any such suggestion. We’ve all met those people who will fight you to the death over a compliment.

For the longest time, that was what I thought humility looked like, and I suspect I’m not alone in that belief.

But let me ask you, this image of a humble man—does it look like Christ? Is this how Christ behaved around people? There’s an upturned table in a temple and a mob of offended Pharisees who would suggest otherwise. And you can’t argue that Christ, because He is God, had no need to be humble—He said so Himself: ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.’ (Matthew 11:25).

So if the person described above is not indeed truly humble, then what is real humility?

I think that question is answered most eloquently by the Christian writer C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity:

‘Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.’

Lewis puts it even more concisely: ‘Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.’

And this, I feel, is where most people—myself first—mess up when it comes to the distinction between pride and humility. You are not humble for your self-deprecation, nor are you prideful for your confidence. Pride or humility is decided by where you are looking: are you looking to God and to His creation, or is your attention drawn mainly to yourself? When faced with a difficult situation, are you searching for God’s will, or are you so engrossed in your own infirmity that you can’t imagine that God would ever use you for His purposes?Believe it or not, whether you are focusing on your many talents or many faults—both are pride. Whether you’re puffing yourself up to make yourself look good in front of others, or tearing yourself down to appear meek, so long as youare your biggest concern, you have fallen as far from real humility as possible.

In this way, it might still be hard to see how you can reconcile humility with confidence. If you’re confident in yourself, you’re still thinking about you, right? What if we’ve misunderstood what real confidence is too?

Let’s take a look at a man who, in my opinion, is one of the best examples of what real confidence looks like: John the Baptist.

John was a confident guy from the very beginning. Even from the womb you could tell he was about as far from that quiet, apologetic person we once mistook for a humble man as possible. He preached wherever he went and was bold enough to tell even powerful rulers like Herod when they were in the wrong (Matthew 14:3-5), knowing full well what the consequences might be. Not to mention the fact that he was eating bugs long before anyone else thought it was cool, though his fashion sense never quite caught on. He feared no man and held no secrets—John the Baptist was an open book and he was never afraid to tell the truth.

However, as much as he talks and as confident as he behaves, there’s not a single trace of pride in his actions. He speaks more of the Christ than himself, and when he does speak of himself, he does so with complete honesty and openness. He never claims to be more than he is, although he is given plenty of opportunities to declare himself a god. He is confident in who he is because he knows himself in relation to Christ (John 1:23, Luke 3:15-17). He is humble not simply because he has realised that ‘He must increase and I must decrease’, but because Christ has made his joy full (John 3:29-30). He has realised that his very purpose is in Christ and Christ, unlike himself, is unfailing. His confidence was never in himself—it was always in the God he served. That is what true confidence looks like, and it is inseparable from his humility.

John the Baptist contrasts rather sharply with the image of the ‘humble’ man we started out with. For far too long, I feel the concept of humility has been twisted into something almost masochistic, and I’ve both seen and experienced the damage a misconception of this beautiful virtue can do to a person. It can generate a sense of worthlessness and self-pity that can only drive a person further away from true humility—from having real confidence in Christ and an honest view of themselves. It is a shroud of lies that prevents one from seeing the Truth—of themselves, of the world, of God. The Truth that is Christ Himself.

The life of John the Baptist also demonstrates another beautiful aspect to this true, outward-looking humility. John, being so confident in his Creator, never felt the need to try and glorify himself. His joy had already been filled by ‘the Bridegroom’s voice’(John 3:29), he needed nothing more. And yet, it was Jesus who came to John to be baptised—one of the greatest honours a human could have. John spent his entire life glorifying the Lord, and in the end, it turned out that the Lord was always preparing to glorify him. And this isn’t just a special case for John. Very clearly in James 4:10, we see that this applies to all of us: ‘Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.’

The Struggle for Victory

The Struggle for Victory

By Archbishop Angaelos

There are many Christians in the world… and we are all trying to find the right way to live. We’re all trying to find a way to be a faithful, committed Christian, and that’s going to mean many different things. Our Lord says, “if you do not take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” And for us, “taking up the cross” can mean different things. Sometimes we visualise “taking up the cross” as being this incredibly different feat, this challenge, this constant struggle… and that’s how we see our Christian lives. For others it will be this glory and this grace and this victory… and that’s how we see it.

The problem is, if we live in either of these extremes, it becomes difficult, and it becomes problematic for us as Christians, because if we just look at the “challenge” and the “struggle,” it becomes burdensome. God has not come to give us a burden, in actual fact He comes and says to us, “Come to me if you are burdened, if you are heavy ladened, if you are tired, and I will give you rest.” But then… if we look at the other side of the Cross just being this glorious, victorious symbol of authority, that is also problematic because that could quite easily slip into us becoming quite proud and arrogant… and there is nothing worse than an arrogant Christian, because that again, is the furthest thing from what we are supposed to be. We are supposed to be meek and lowly and humble and giving and sacrificial. All of those things. None of those things equate to arrogance and self- righteousness.

So what is the reality of our journey then? The reality of our journey is the Cross, that it is sometimes… a struggle, but at the end of it, it is a glorious victory. In our lives, we will struggle. We will struggle daily. Sometimes they’re large, significant, sometimes its crippling struggles, otherwise, there will be your daily struggles that just happen as we live life. Neither of those should overcome us, none of that should make us feel that we have no source or strength or foundation to go back to. We remember at that point that while there was pain and struggle and even a sense of ill-repute in the Cross, when our Lord was there crucified. Yet before He left this world, He left us the glory of the resurrection. He told us that there was something to come afterwards… no matter how strong, how significant, how even crippling the struggle, there is always the glory of that resurrection of the Cross. And that is the reality of our journey.

It is a complete, holistic journey. It is not one that is rooted in an absolute, because our journeys continue to shape and unfold. The only absolute is the presence of God and the salvation to which He calls us. The way we live it, the message and the hope and the victory and even the struggle is going to be shaped daily by our experiences and the presence of God in our lives. So… we give thanks for the struggles, we give thanks for the glory and we give thanks for the victory, knowing that when we “take up our cross,” we follow in the footsteps of our Saviour. Just as He suffered, we will sometimes suffer, but just as He, at the end of that journey, experienced and shared with us the glory and victory of the resurrection, so too will we, at the end of our struggle rise in glory and in the beauty of His kingdom and His promises.

True Prayer

True Prayer

A reflection of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s “Living Prayer” by St Athanasius’ Book Fellowship

Who are you praying to?

Do you pray to God, or do you pray for your will to be done through God? While we’d all love to say that we pray to God and for His will to be done, there is a more accurate answer. Your life and the person you are becoming reflects your prayer life more truly. You are an image of the one whom you worship.

We know that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. If we are worshipping God in false humility then we know that He is far from us. If we are proud then we make God the object of our own will. We make Him the means to an end, and not the end that we should be striving for. There is a fine line between heaven and hell and that line is drawn in the hearts of each of us.

How then, do we discover this purifying judgement?

When we stand in the presence of God, He reveals Himself to us personally. Jesus teaches us in the final days, the hearts of man will be opened when He says:

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” (Matt. 25:31-33).

An early Church Father once contemplated on this parable regarding church worship. The church is adorned on feast days. The congregation comes dressed in their finest apparel, but only God can distinguish the sheep from the goats. Our hearts are exposed before God. The goats are those subject to pride – that is, the god of their own will. The sheep are the ones that come to God in the confidence of humility. We could be doing all the right things – going to church, praying the Agbia, reading the Bible – yet infinitely far from God.

To worship God in truth is to recognise that my only security is in You, the Creator of heaven and earth. My confidence is in the One who cannot be shaken.

When thousands came to see Jesus in the Flesh, He took notice of one woman. Not because of any grand entrances, but through the greatness of her faith. The woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years touched His garments and believed she would be healed. At this touch, He says, “somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.”

There is power in prayer, every time we come before the throne of grace. The woman’s response is the same response we should have toward prayer, for in her response lies the humility of prayers heard.

“Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately”(Matt 8:47).

The revelation of true prayer

There can sometimes be an overemphasis of our true human states – “I am dirt.” This was never meant to demoralise. It is truth, and it is a truth that switches our sense of security from our imperfect self to the perfect Creator of the universe.

If we stand in front of anything great, what reaction do you expect? If we compare ourselves to the size of the earth, to the size of the galaxy, to the size of universe, the realisation that follows is how small we really are in comparison. The earth becomes likes a drop in the ocean. There is no comparison. The reality of our lives is that despite how small we are compared to our Creator, it is His love that makes us aware of His presence and our shortcomings at the same time.

In prayer, we don’t start with our sinfulness, we start with who God is, followed by our weaknesses. If you are standing in a dark room and you stumble, the first thing you do is turn on the light to prevent yourself from falling again. When the lights are on, you see that damage you caused and how to avoid it. It is a common misconception that we should come to God when we are good, when we have overcome sin. God is the light of our lives. Through Him, we overcome our sins. Our sins are not revealed on their own. God is first revealed, followed by our sins so that we are supported and guided toward life with Him. When God’s glory was revealed to Isaiah, his first reaction was, “I am a man of unclean lips.” This isn’t even necessarily the result of a sin he committed, it was simply the realisation of the Almighty.

Practically speaking, there are three measures to the efficacy of true prayer;

A sense of security and reliance on God
Recognition of my sins
The way I perceive and deal with my neighbours

The true question we need to be asking ourselves to achieve these, is when I fall, how do I react?

If you have thoughts of disappointments – “I don’t do this anymore, I’m better than that. I can’t believe I’ve fallen again.” This is reliance on self. The biggest danger is the nagging voice that says you can make yourself better independent of God. “You’re better than that.” When those self-reliant thoughts are exhausted, turn to God.

The old Adam hides, blames others and ‘clothes’ himself in an attempt to cover up his insecurities. God is like a parachute that we hope we don’t need to use. We don’t want to pull the parachute to keep us alive. God is a nice add on to how you want to appear, an image that will not last. We need to shift Him from our last resort to our One and only hope that we run to at all times.

Another question we ask is, do I pray more fervently in church than I do when I am alone?

We may appear good before others but what about God? I want to be recognised for doing good before God. While there is nothing wrong with praying among others, make sure that after every day, it is in the hidden place that you complete your search for the Almighty.

Let us stop asking “How are you” but imitate the monks who say to one another, “How is your prayer life?” For there is no life that is separated from prayer.