A Meadow with Poplars. Artist: Claude Monet. 1875
God loves and believes in human beings. He believes in the best that He instilled in us at creation, when He made us loving toward goodness and free in our choices. Every choice carries the responsibility to accept its consequences, as well as the labor of acting in accordance with our inner understanding of good. This is the meaning of our life. The Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl defined it as “the best possible in every situation for all its participants” and called conscience the primary organ for discovering the meaning of life.
God created us rational, yet not exempt from error. The experience of these mistakes can either narrow our horizons or, conversely, become the starting point for changing our lives for the better. When we act in accordance with God’s will, living by His commandments and in harmony with our conscience, our lives gain a Divine perspective, and we move toward God and find salvation.
God loves us; He loves all people. He does not love us the way I love the river I visit when I go to see my parents in the countryside; rather, He loves every single drop of that river individually. God loves me personally, He loves you personally, and He loves everyone in the world. His love is not abstract—it is concrete and felt in every single moment of my life, even when I sin and act against God’s will and against common sense. Yet, God still loves me, cares for me, comforts me, pulls me out of any trouble, and gives me the reason and the opportunity to make things right.
God creates only what He needs, and what He intends always comes to pass. If God, in His love, created me instead of a beautiful giraffe or a rhino, it means my life in this world is not a random coincidence, but a consequence of Divine perfection. It means that I, and all of us, are needed by God, even if we sometimes think we do not need Him. Because He loves us and has always loved us.
Once a priest told me:
“Just think about the fact that you came into this world solely because of God’s love! It was there at the very beginning of your journey into this world. In God’s love, there was a blueprint for you, written in Heaven, so that you would be born. And only after that did your parents meet, leading to the creation of the one and only, unique you—and all of us, every person on earth. Every human being was a firstborn, and everyone is one of a kind.”
Looking at what is happening in the world today, people sometimes say, “Look at the horrors taking place! Where is your God, and why does He allow this?” People often confuse God with a governor or a police officer. If God were to interfere in all our affairs and actions at His own whim, against our will, then our freedom would become that of an infant permanently placed in a playpen. The infant feels good and comfortable there; he doesn’t need to worry or think about anything, as everything is done for him. But if you put an adult into a playpen, he will feel as though he were locked up in a prison or in a mental hospital.
The hardest thing that we are all experiencing today—felt by believers and non-believers alike—is the fading of love. We do not love, and we are not loved. People are drifting apart, becoming increasingly alienated and indifferent. And as a result, they feel infinitely lonely and unhappy.
Answering the question of why it is difficult for modern people to live in accordance with God’s will, one schema-archimandrite recalled that when he was young, he asked an older monk, “Why is life so difficult?” The monk replied, “Life is not difficult. You are the one who is difficult. Life is peace, life is the Gospel. But you do not live according to the Gospel, and that is the cause of your problems.”
St. Paisios the Hagiorite used to say: “Thinking in an Orthodox way is easy, but living in an Orthodox way requires labor.” For the joy of the Gospel, the joy of Christ’s Resurrection and victory over death to become our own joy, and for the grace of God to truly enter our lives, we must purify our souls. We need repentance—which does not consist in listing sins and introspection during confession, but in changing our lives according to God’s Commandments.
Once, a priest told me:
“Ask the Lord for the fear of God—it will help you conquer sins.” There are the following words in the Book of Proverbs by King Solomon: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). This is not the fear of being punished by God for sin, as some believe, but a conscious desire not to cause pain to the One you love. As St. Clement of Alexandria noted, the proper fear of God is not dread of His wrath, but the dread of falling away from Him. Just as a child in a crowd is afraid to wander away from loving parents, so a believing, God-fearing soul fears sin, which tears it away from the loving God.
The Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Hebrews contains these powerful words: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever (Heb. 13:8). God’s love has not gone anywhere from us—it is we who have grown spiritually poor; but grace in the world is no less today than it was in the days of the apostles.
We often look for the root of our problems in external things, forgetting that a ship does not sink because of the water around it, but because of the water that gets inside. The practice of Christian life is precisely about not letting inside our minds and souls what harms us and separates us from God.
God loves us and gives us freedom, the beauty of this world, and everything in it, with only one condition: that we take responsibility for it. Responsibility is built on trust. God trusts us, believes in us, and in our ability to shape our lives in goodness and to resist evil. Not by compulsion, but willingly. This is what mature relationships look like—built on love, mutual respect, and trust.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh wrote about this belief in oneself as follows:
“Faith in oneself implies the certainty that in every person, and in me in particular, there is a realm that remains elusive even to myself; and that by being myself day by day—as perfectly, honestly, courageously, and sacrificially as possible—I will ultimately uncover and set in motion new, unstoppable strengths.”
This faith is far removed from self-confidence based on knowledge, experience, or the recognition by others; it is that which lies in the depths of our hearts and is the mystery of Divine economy.
Despite the seeming triumph of injustice and evil in the world, the Kingdom of God, promised to us by Christ, has already conquered it. We become partakers of this Kingdom, establishing it in our own lives and in the lives of those around us, when we act toward our neighbors out of love.
Not out of selfishness, self-interest, or convenience, but for Christ’s sake. We have discovered in our lives—and personally experienced, each in his own way—that God loves us, and we respond to this love in return. First, we found God in our own hearts, and then we met Him in the eyes of another.
Once while browsing the internet, I came across a video: a young woman in a beautiful long dress, her hair neatly tucked under a hat, holding a handbag and wearing elegant shoes, was walking down the busy street of an ordinary European city with a graceful, light, and almost floating gait. She was not walking the way people usually do during rush hour—hurriedly, with cold, unsmiling faces, and trying to ignore everyone around them. Instead, she offered a warm, open smile to every passerby. Captivated by her smile and grace, people stopped dead in their tracks, unable to tear their eyes away. They forgot their rush, shook their heads in admiration, and smiled back. Against the backdrop of the faceless street crowd dressed in shapeless modern clothes—where you can hardly tell a man from a woman—she was the very embodiment of femininity, sophistication, and beauty. What a wonderful image of faith in the life of modern man!
Acts of love pleasing to God are not impossible feats beyond our strength, but the daily effort to be a little more attentive, caring, and patient with those around us: our families, friends, and the people we meet at church. So that our love may make their lives lighter, brighter, and more joyful. Then people around us will see our faith.
