Archimandrite Zacharias of Essex on Responding to God
“But given the fact that God always wants to give us all that He has, it is up to us to respond to His wish, to His desire, and, by accepting His Cross, to convince Him that we are His. You see, our God is a “difficult” God, and that is why many fall away from Him. He is difficult because He has conceived something very great for us, and He wants to give us everything; but how can He entrust to us all heaven, all eternity, before we are tried? In order to receive something very great we need to be tried. In common life, for instance, we have to prove ourselves in order to receive something — say, a promotion of some kind — so how much more do we have to prove ourselves if we are to receive the divine life? And this is not because God is mean or unkind, but because He doesn’t want to give us the divine life and then for us to give “that which is holy unto the dogs” (Matt. 7:6), thereby bringing on ourselves even greater desolation. God does all this for our sakes. He has conceived something exceedingly great for us: He created us in His Image and Likeness, giving us the capacity for (recapitulation) receiving the revelation to come at the end of time through His Son (Logos).”
– Interview