Tag: faith

Entrusting Our Lives To The Lord

Entrusting Our Lives To The Lord

By Fr Mark Basily

You’ll always find that the church is opposite to the world. In everything. The world says fear, the Church says don’t fear. The world says death is sad, the Church says death is happy. The world says suffering is bad, the Church will say suffering is glorious. You’ll always find this beautiful contrast taking place. One of those things is fear. The world always makes things fear, fear, fear. And Christ comes and says don’t fear, don’t fear, don’t fear… just trust Me. In fact the most repeated commandment in the Bible… is “do not fear”. The most repeated commandment from the mouth of Christ, is “do not fear”, “do not worry”, “why you worrying”, “it ok”. 125 times in the Gospels we are commanded not to worry or not to fear, or something along the lines of trust Me.

It’s the most repeated commandment, and it’s actually a commandment. A lot of the time we think “don’t worry” is like advice. You know, “Just don’t fear, don’t worry, it’s ok… got your back”. And we may say, “oh that’s good advice God… yeah great advice…. I may take it on board in my life”. It’s actually not a piece of advice, nor is it a way of life… it’s a commandment. It’s like “do not steal”, “do not murder”…. “do not fear”. It’s a commandment. God is commanding us to trust Him. And so when we don’t, I have to confess… I have to go tell Abouna in confession and say “I was worried”, “I was scared”, “I was fearful”, “I didn’t trust” … because it is a commandment of God from us not to fear and not to worry.

The question for us then is how? How can I get to this level in my life where I’m not worried, I’m relaxed, you know…. It’s all good, I trust God?  I really believe that this is the key to happiness. If you want to be happy in your life, you have to be able to trust God. There is a place you can be in life, where you’re permanently happy. No matter what. And I think that’s where we need to be in our Christian walk, our Christian life. We need to be in a state where, “you know what, I’m sweet, I’m happy… and nothing can take that away from me”. So how? How do I get to that point in my life? No matter what happens… let’s say I failed my HSC, I lose my job, I’ve lost a loved one. How can I get to that place in my life, where nothing can shake me? Ill offer three ways, and its all about trusting God.

The first one is to place your treasures in heaven. And I’m giving you words from Christ. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves, treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves will break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”.

This is usually the root cause, of our loss of peace, or our loss of happiness. That my treasures are on earth. If my treasures are on earth, then as Christ said, we can lose them. Therefore you will lose your peace… because where your treasure is, there your heart will be. So if I’ve lost my treasure, I’ve lost my heart. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

The second way to increase our trust in God and to live happy, is to trust God in the small things in my life. Our Lord says this, “Look at the small things in my life, for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? Now if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, of little faith”.

And so here Christ is challenging us to increase our faith by looking at the small things. Even the things like birds. And that’s a lovely exercise to actually do in our spiritual life, whenever you see a bird around, remember of this verse. You know that Abouna Augustinos always says that you never see a depressed bird. There always annoyingly happy. Always happy. They wake up in the morning happy and whistling. You never see a sad bird like “uuggghhh”. They’re always happy. And Christ says look at the birds… they’re okay… and aren’t you more precious than a bird. Of course you are. And if God looks after the bird, he’ll look after you. So trust God even in the small things in our lives.

God looks after our little needs. Its very easy for Him to solve a problem. Its very easy for Him to look after Him in our daily lives, in our day to day needs. I just have to trust Him.

And when I learn to trust Him in the smaller things, then ill learn to trust Him in the bigger things in my life.

The last way to live happy and entrust my life to God, is to live for the present moment. Our problem sometimes is that we live regretting the past, and worrying about the future. And so my mind is always in the past or in the future. And that’s always where there’s darkness. The past is darkness. The future is unknown, its dark as well. The only time that is real, the only time that has light… is now. Is my present moment.

My Coming to Faith

My Coming to Faith

by Anthony Zaccariotto 

I come from an Italian Catholic background, was baptised at birth by my parents and  received Holy Communion when I was 8 or 9 years old. It may have been as a means of pleasing my grandparents and keeping tradition but, after this, I never learnt about Christ or the Christian faith and religion seemed to be disregarded after that.

I was very spoilt growing up, my father would give me anything I wanted and more. Throughout high school and in my early twenties I was lusting, chasing girls, going to parties, drinking, smoking, spending, travelling, and was never really too concerned with study. I have been working ever since I finished high school and the majority of it has been in my father’s businesses.

Often in my life I felt very lonely, empty and like no one understood me. I was never satisfied no matter what I did whether it was partying, sex, drugs, drinking, smoking, travelling or making money. My heart was yearning for something that nothing in this world was able to satisfy. There was always this gap inside me that never seemed to be filled. No matter who I talked to in my life, I didn’t get an answer that helped me. Not from my family, friends or even my girlfriend at the time. This began my search for meaning and truth.

I started my search in literature; self-help books, philosophy, biographies etc. They were very interesting and did help quite a bit but they were still not filling the gap. A lot of them talked of success, ambition, contentment, gratitude and staying positive but they were not answering my questions. I can understand when people want to set goals, achieve success or want a better life for themselves and their families, but I did not really know what to do with them as I had been spoilt growing up and already knew that wealth and success was not enough. I have met many rich, wealthy and successful people and to my amazement it almost seemed like they were the ones who were struggling the most inside. I hope I don’t sound arrogant when I write this I am just opening up on how I felt.

Very shortly after my search I ran into a young man who I hadn’t seen since I was 14 years old. His name is Tony, and he also goes St Marks Church. I saw him at a cafe one day right next to the office where I work. Tony and I were good friends when we were in high school and would hang out quite a bit. However, this boy was probably the wildest, craziest, most disruptive student in the school. He would be cursing at teachers, vandalising as well as, receiving detentions and suspensions. It wasn’t long after commencing year 8 that he was told to leave the school. He gives me full permission to tell this story by the way, so I am not going behind his back here. We both still joke about it with each other.

Anyway, I see him at this cafe and our faces just light up, I sat with him and we had a big conversation. I noticed however something was very different about him. He was the exact opposite of what I remembered. I understand people mature in life as the years go by, but this was something way out of the ordinary. He told me about his story after he left high school; how he got into a bit of trouble, how struggled through pain and how he needed help and eventually found his faith in Christ.

Now this really intrigued me as it was not like anything I had ever encountered before.

Not long after this, I began to open up about my story to him. About how I was going through a tough time in my life trying to find answers, looking for meaning and purpose and trying to find what the universe wanted from me.

Tony said to me with great confidence and a cheeky little smile that what I needed was a Saviour and that he had one for me. He made me laugh and anyone who knows him knows how hilarious this man can be. I dismissed everything he said because it just sounded silly and religion was a topic I was not interested in.

After this run into each other we exchanged numbers and continued to meet up. It turns out he worked only a few doors down from my office. I kept opening up to him about I felt and how I was just sick of the life I was living. Even though to many people out there I had the ideal life, to me it didn’t feel that way.

Tony continued on how he understood what I was going through. He explained that I needed to pray and I needed to have faith in God but it still seemed silly to me. I’ll give you a direct quote from Tony: ‘Mate scrap all those books that you are reading, there is only one book you should be reading and that’s the Bible’. Anyone who knows Tony will know exactly how he would have said that. One day down the track he was even kind enough to buy me a Bible and other books about The Church such as ‘The Fear of God’, ‘Return to God’, ‘Love the summit of virtues’ – all books written by Pope Shenouda.

The whole thing still seemed ridiculous to me but I told him I would at least give it a shot, after all he was kind enough to get me these books. I started with Genesis and straight away I knew I was not interested, especially with what the world had programmed into my mind about ‘reality’, ‘evolution’, ‘science burying God’ and the whole lot. So I put it down and dismissed the whole thing. By the way, I need to add in a quote here from C.S. Lewis “a young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading”.

He told me to come along with him to church and just give it a try. It was the night we had Gary Raymond preaching along with some of the fathers in the church. Probably some of the greatest sermons I have ever heard and they touched me in a very profound way. Soon I did some more research on the church, its history, its beliefs, Christianity and of course science. I was hungry for answers and the truth. I eventually found it. I guess it’s true when they say that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. A little J.P. Morlan quote to everyone who reads this -‘God maintains a delicate balance between keeping his existence sufficiently evident so people will know He’s there and yet hiding His presence enough so that people who want to choose to ignore Him can do it. This way, their choice of destiny is really free’.

I could go on and on here but I am trying to summarise as briefly as I can.

I had a meeting shortly after with Father Mark and we had a very nice talk. He was even kind enough to welcome me into the Coptic Church which was a real honour. This church had some of the most wonderful, kind and loving people I had ever met, mong many other wonderful attributes. The rest is history from there.

My closing statement to all you readers is best summarised by Ravi Zaccharias and Bill Craige: I have travelled the world, I have searched high and low, and I have found nothing that satisfies my mind, my heart and the deepest longing of my soul like Jesus does. If you are sincerely seeking God I promise he will make his existence evident for you. God bless you all and I can’t wait for you the reader to come and join me and transform the way I did.

Faith or Feelings

Faith or Feelings

by Shery Abdelmalek

Faith = the belief in the unseen. A belief that is unwavering through trials and external circumstances.

Feelings = ever changing and temperamental.

While having no comparison, when feelings are confused for faith, turmoil naturally results. We begin praying only when we feel like it and as a result, we inadvertently neglect God, our First Love, when we don’t.

What good excuse is there to put the love of your life on hold? Does anyone in a relationship ever take massive long breaks from their beloved and expect things to remain the same when they return? No chance.

You can make all the excuses you want. You can convince yourself that being apart from Him is the best decision for the moment. You can even, as the prodigal son did, choose to live and eat amongst a pigsty because you don’t feel like going home just yet – you can make it on your own. While you make these compromises within yourself, that is your very own pigsty. A pigsty that the devil has blinded you to believe is your own palace.

Even the devil used scripture in an attempt to convince Jesus to fall into temptation. Any word or phrase in the Bible can be twisted to suit any agenda. It all starts with one feeling. One feeling you don’t want to let go of. When a feeling or a thought becomes the cornerstone of our belief system, internal confusion and chaos result.

This is why we value faith – it remains constants throughout all trials and tribulations. St Paul says we walk by faith, not by sight. We can read this and think that faith must be the opposite of sight. That would mean faith is blind. Faith is not synonymous with being blind. Faith is seeing through spiritual eyes, and not earthly. Faith is believing in the One that has delivered you time and time again, will continue to do so. We must remain steadfast in our faith. The Word of God that took Flesh remains throughout all hurdles. The blessing of these hurdles is lost when we let go of faith and look with earthly eyes.

When feelings override faith, external influences begin to dictate our inward selves. The spirit doesn’t stand a chance. This is stage one of a faith that is slipping toward the desires of the flesh. Elder Thaddeus explains this saying:

“As soon as a desire or a worldly thought enters our mind, God immediately sends a warning. Instead of coming to our senses and blocking such thoughts and desires, we nurture them and long for them, and afterwards we wonder why bad things happen to us. These signs of warning come in the form of temptations.”

When temptations are not fought, the soul begins to suffer. Prayers change according to what has happened in the world around us on any particular day. You may have had a great day, you may have had the worst day imaginable.

Through it all, let one phrase be the pinnacle of your thoughts – It is what it is.
Controlling emotions is no easy task but we gain strength in feeding the spirit over the desires of the flesh. If the spirit is strong, there is little influence external events and circumstances can have. Feed the spirit before you feed body. Elder Thaddeus continues on saying:

“Our life depends on the kind of thoughts we nurture. If our thoughts are peaceful, calm, meek and kind, then that is what our life is like. If our attention is turned to the circumstances in which we live, we are drawn into a whirlpool of thoughts and can have neither peace nor tranquillity.”

The devil may trap you, through feelings, to believe you can go one day without His providence, weeks, months, years even. He may lead you to believe that He will never take you back. 2 minutes of repentance can cleanse years of separation. One step toward the Saviour of us all is all it takes. Sit with yourself, alone, for 2 minutes and talk to Him. Return to Him and He will return to you. The second He sees you coming from a distance, He will run to greet you. There is no shame attached. 2 minutes is all it takes, especially when we don’t feel like it. You don’t think the devil knows how to keep you away? He’s being doing this for much longer than you or I have been alive. All those doubts you have, the devil is the author of them all.

Don’t forget the One who made you and gave you the authority to trample over serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. You belong to God, don’t let the devil let you think otherwise. There is no good excuse to remain away. No sin too great He can’t forgive. No weakness. No sorrow. It’s amazing the doubts and excuses the devil can implant when we just don’t feel like praying. They can built up so much in the mind when in reality, God is waiting earnestly to greet you. Elder Thaddeus explains this cycle as follows:

“A person who is entrapped in the vicious cycle of chaotic thoughts, in the atmosphere of hades, or has only so much as touched, feels the torment of hell. For example, we read the newspaper or take a walk in the streets, and afterwards we suddenly feel that something is not quite right in our souls; we feel an emptiness; we feel sadness. That is because by reading all sorts of things, our mind becomes distracted and the atmosphere of hades has free access to our minds.”

Fight to discipline the feelings that come and go, only then will you have inward peace. In closing, Elder Thaddeus puts it best:

“This is how we must live – controlling our thoughts. It is not good to dwell on every thought that comes to us otherwise we lose our peace. If we learn to refuse such proposals, we are quiet. We do not fantasize or create any images in our mind.”

All quotes taken from “Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica”