Tribulation worketh patience,
And patience, experience;
And hope maketh not ashamed
(Romans 5:3–5).
Everything in our world has a price—not in monetary terms, but as a sum total of efforts, time, and resources spent to achieve something. It is no coincidence that the Apostle Paul admonished the inhabitants of the rich and corrupt city of Corinth, remembering the Sacrifice of the Cross: Ye are bought with a price (1 Cor. 7:23), and the Holy Hierarch Basil the Great stated concisely: “The price of man is the blood of Christ.”
Our petitions to God also have their price: sorrows, prayers, labors, temptations and patience. Our business is to pray, leaving the overall outcome to God’s care. This leads to a complicated conclusion: We know what we want, but we don’t know if it’s good for us, and we don’t know what God wants, but we know that it’s good for us.
It defies the earthly logic of justice, but stems from the “illogical” Divine mercy that penetrates the depths of the human heart. That is why the Lord, Who knows the hearts of all men (cf. Acts 1:24), above all requires trust from us. Yes, there is also a price in our relations with God—trust.
Etymologically, the word “doverye” (literally something like “pre-faith”), the Russian for “trust”, implies something preceding faith. It is a volitional choice that combines voluntariness, hope, risk, openness, fortitude and readiness for any outcome. The value of any relationship is determined by the measure of sincerity and the level of trust, the boundaries of which can only be limited by the freedom of the one who trusts.
Trust imposes a great responsibility on the one who is trusted. Absolute trust is possible only in God, For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6). He believes in His creations, does not seek to violate their freedom, does not betray trust, does not require unreasonable sacrifices, supports the weak and strengthens the exhausted.
Peaceful waiting stems from the ability to hear “trust Me” in God’s silence—an answer whose meaning our fear-obsessed, impetuous age is unable to understand.
The Holy Scriptures and the Patristic works reveal the causes of the success or ineffectiveness of our prayers, which with certain reservations can be divided into three key components: time, petition and the person himself—the ways of his heart.
Regarding time, St. Ephraim the Syrian explains: “A fruit taken before the due time is harmful, and a gift given at the wrong time also causes harm.”
The subject of our prayer request should not be:
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not for our benefit (“How will God be the Lover of mankind if He fulfills a petition harmful to me?”—Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria);
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unworthy (“For behold, the Angels and Archangels ... are grieved looking at someone who has abandoned Heaven and asks for filth,”—St. Isaac the Syrian);
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or insulting to God (“When someone prays against his enemies or against people who have hurt him in some way, they are not the words of a man, but of the devil,”—St. John Chrysostom).
The causes concerning the person himself are so numerous that they, in turn, can be divided into those related to God, to his neighbors and to himself.
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Thus, prayer should be offered up to God with faith (Ask, and it shall be given you (Mt. 7:7), But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering (Jas. 1:6));
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With humility (Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only (Mt. 8:8));
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longsuffering (And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him (Lk. 18:7));
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perseverance in prayer (Send her away; for she crieth after us (Mt. 15:23));
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boldness (and touched His garment (Mk. 5:27));
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faithfulness (thou hast been faithful over a few things (Mt. 25:21));
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gratitude (In every thing give thanks (1 Thess. 5:18)).
In relation to our neighbors, we are supposed to perform works of love, cultivating a merciful heart, and above all, forgiving their wrongdoings, as St. Seraphim of Sarov said:
“Put your trust in God and ask for His help, and be able to forgive your neighbors, and you will be given everything you ask for.”
As for the person himself, prayer can be fruitless for a number of reasons: because of pride,1 perseverance in sins,2 his unworthiness,3 when he does not ask for what he really wants,4 or does not do what he must do.5
The main cause is directly given in the Epistle of the Apostle James:
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts (Jas. 4:3). That is, if you use it for everything that nurtures your passions, and first of all, self-love, which is the origin of all the passions, as St. Maximus the Confessor wrote.
A special danger awaits him who chooses to obtain something “at any cost”. It is certainly a losing strategy, in which what we don’t have is valued above ourselves. Health, money, relationships, power, property are just benefits for a temporary life; what is called to serve cannot be more valuable than the one it serves.
St. Nilus of Sinai honestly writes in his Homily on Prayer:
“I have often asked God through prayer for something I thought to be good. And I insisted illogically on asking for it, thus violating Divine will. I would not let God provide whatever He knew would be to my benefit. And so, having received what I had asked for, I afterwards felt very sorry that I had not asked that His Will be done; because things did not turn out as I had thought they would.”6
Hand in hand with the desire to obtain something “at all costs” comes haste, a truly underestimated enemy of a careful Christian life. In a hurry, obsessed with something, we make many mistakes at once, for which we subsequently pay a significant price.
Various problems appear all the time, but that’s what life is all about. More exactly, it is to learn to preserve peace of mind, to find solutions in very complicated situations, to have hope in extreme hopelessness—in short, to use everything that happens to move forward. This is the main skill of a Christian.
God, Who created man in His Own image, wants man to be like Him also in this. Indeed, the ability to melt down difficult life circumstances for the good (in the words of the Holy Hierarch John of Tobolsk: “God turns evil into some good every time”) is an amazing property of God and something that we should learn throughout our lives.
Only, we must attain salvation at any cost; as for the rest, we must rely on the work of God’s All-powerful right hand.
Let us trust in God with grateful hearts in the most difficult circumstances, remembering what was said to the Apostle Paul and addressed to all of us: My strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
