Elder St Paisios on Accepting God’s Will…
That’s why I do not pray for God to make me well. I pray for Him to make me good. I’m certain that God knows that I am in pain. But I pray for my soul, for God to forgive my transgressions. I am not taking medicines, nor did I go for surgery, not even for tests, and nor will I accept surgery. I will leave God to sort things out. The only thing I do is to try to become good. This is what I ask you to pray for me. The grace of God sustains me. I try to give myself to Christ, to approach Christ and to be one with Christ. This is what I desire, but I haven’t succeeded — and I don’t say this out of humility. But I don’t lose my courage. I persevere.
I pray for God to forgive my sins. I’ve heard many people saying, ‘I’m unable to pray.’ I haven’t suffered this. Only on the day that I was disobedient on the Holy Mountain did I suffer that.
It doesn’t concern me how long I will live or whether I will live. That is something I have left to God’s love. It often happens that you don’t
want to remember death. It’s because you desire life. That, from one point of view, is a proof of the immortality of the soul. But whether we’ live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. Death is a bridge which will lead us to Christ. As soon as we close our eyes, we will open them on eternity. We will appear before Christ. In the next life we will experience the grace of God more intensely.
– ‘Spiritual Struggle’