{"id":10005,"date":"2021-07-04T11:56:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T15:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=10005"},"modified":"2021-06-27T07:56:58","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T11:56:58","slug":"elder-ephraim-of-arizona-on-the-unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=10005","title":{"rendered":"Elder Ephraim+ of Arizona on the Unexpected\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>May the all-compassionate God be merciful to my wretched soul, which has nothing but its indifference and unreadiness. My mind stops when it contemplates this absolute truth about salvation.\u00a0 \u201cEternity\u201d\u2014oh, what a great mystery! The world, the\u00a0 flesh, and the devil lead us astray and throw us into forgetfulness\u2014and suddenly a voice is heard: \u201cBehold, the Bridegroom comes!\u201d When we are breathing our last, what preparation can we make then, when our conscience has already been cauterized and can no longer feel anything or cry out to us? Then the voice of truth is heard: \u201cOnly when the sun was setting did you remember God; what were you doing all day long when the sun was shining?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWatch and be ready,\u201d1 cries our Jesus! Blessed are those who have ears to hear, who hear and get ready, for they will be counted worthy of eternal happiness. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord will find ready when He comes, for they will rejoice eternally.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Counsels from the Holy Mountain\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10006\" src=\"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/motsamenta-monastery-300x216.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/motsamenta-monastery-300x216.jpg 300w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/motsamenta-monastery.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>May the all-compassionate God be merciful to my wretched soul, which has nothing but its indifference and unreadiness. My mind stops when it contemplates this absolute truth about salvation.\u00a0 \u201cEternity\u201d\u2014oh, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10007,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10005\/revisions\/10007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}