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Painful but important issue
hello I want to make this the first post so when I want to I can delete my second post..
Comments
said alot of bad stuff perhaps but you still beared with me. I have a changed mind about some things now.
St Isaac the Syrian teaches that sometimes the grace of God leaves us for a short time, in order for us to remember how utterly helpless we are without God’s grace. Its absence reveals to us our weakness and poverty, and teaches us to come again like beggars before the throne of God.
In your case when God is examining your faith, you simply start possessing doubt of Gods love for you. You start inculcating in your mind that God is distant and ultimately despises you because He lets you go through the trials in the first place. God lets things happen in order to test you, not because He doesn’t care for you. God is love and it would be uncanny if He created you in order to make you suffer.
If I may make a suggestion about your studies that seem to be constantly weighing you down. Try going to your counselor and take a personality test as well as an IQ test. If your studies are too difficult for your comprehension then there is no shame in studying something else. Study something that you are passionate about and that you will enjoy doing in the future. Maybe the cause of your misery is that your studies are in fact to difficult for you and to add to the frustration you don’t enjoy doing it?
Now about you swearing at God, well be very cautious because “For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned” Matthew 12:37. Don’t just give in to the devils sinister schemes, but rather pray more passionately, read the bible or other spiritual books, divulge to your father of confession, be penitent, and fast.
In His Name
I don't know if the swearing is sin
actually I pray and think alot and reading too much spiritual books will help you while your doing it but when you study the thoughts will come again.. spending too much time reading will make me fail like I did last time in another course
This reminds me of one important question (issue). How do you see hell?
My abouna once thought that... hell is not like fire and all that burning stuff.... where teh devil torments you.... as depicted in many western movies ... But it is just a state of the mind... where we will always live in anguish and mourning... because we will fell guilty and our concise will feel guilty for our sins ... for God has judged us to go to hell.
I used to be very scared of hell too. When i was small, i was scared and i prayed a lot. Now, thanks to God I'm free.
I have an interesting story to tell. I might create a thread for it and let it ALL out. Not sure if i'm ready to tell or not.
God bless ya'll.
However, I offer you my humble thoughts about what you raise with curiousity and Satan's assumption of Deity.I can not be certain, but I think that Satan's want to be greater than God is pride, not curiosity. I do not believe He wanted to know what it would be like? I think He envied God's supremacy, and thought that what rightfully is due to him is submission of other angels and worship. But that oversimplifies your position. I think you speak about our curiousity to challenge our faith, by dabbling with things that are forbidden; to see fulfillment in that which we do not have. Perhaps this was a factor in the fall of Satan, and our own.
But there is something that I believe should give you security, and that is your painful awareness that this type of curiosity is leaving you unfulfilled. You are reading scores of literature from the faithful, in effect, have redirected and channeled your desire for solace in the inner sanctum.
Yet, you are not fulfilled; the taunts of doubt still grip you. Perhaps using curiousity in this manner is irresponsible. We are using intellect to find abstract, something that has inherent limits. I think it is worthwhile reminder to us, that:
[center]God cannot be grasped by the mind. If He could be grasped, He would not be God.[/center]
- Evagrios of Pontus
St Gregory of Nyssa, in quite the same spirit said:
The true knowledge and vision of God consist in this- in seeing that He is invisible, because what we seek lies behind knowledge, being wholly separated by the darkness of incomprehensibility
I believe that is the essence of the reason of our Church's unwavering loyalty to keeping mystery. We must first recognise our radical limitation of human cognition and of conceptual language. If you think that faith is the only thing mysterious, then I think we have to rationally accept mystery by acknowledging that even in your studies, that formulating thoughts and expressing them have its limitations. By not just acknowledging, but by careful deliberation and meditation, I think we can arrive at that conclusion with certainty. In that vein, we might also know that since God has to be incomprehensible in His nature, that absolute certainty is not even reasonable.
It is with this that we have to learn not only to accept mystery, but to celebrate it. Faith alone can "embrace these mysteries, for it faith that makes real for us things beyond reason and intellect (Heb. 11:1)."
We must, Mike, not use materialistic science to delve into the metaphysics. I bring two analogies by two saints:
[center]Think of a man standing at night inside his house, with all the doors closed; and then suppose that he opens a window just at that moment when there is a sudden flash of lightning. Unable to bear its brightness, at once he protects himself by closing his eyes and drawing back from the window. So it is with the soul that is enclosed in the realm of the senses; if ever she peeps out through the window of the intellect, she is overwhelmed by the brightness, like lightning, of the pledge of the Holy Spirit that is within her. Unable to bear the splendor of unveiled light, at once she is bewildered in her intellect, and she draws back entirely upon herself, taking refuge, as in a house, among sensory and human things.[/center]
(St. Simeon the New Theologian)
[center]Imagine a sheer, steep crag with a projecting edge at the top. Now imagine what a person would probably feel if he put his foot on the edge of this precipice and, looking down in the chasm below, saw no solid footing nor anything to hold on to. This is what I think the soul experiences when it goes beyond its footing in material things, in its quest for that which has no dimension and which exists from all eternity. For here there tis nothing it can take hold of, neither place, nor time, neither measure nor anything else; our minds cannot approach it. And thus the soul, slipping at every point from what cannot be grasped, becomes dizzy and perplexed and returns once again to what is connatural with it, content now to know merely this about the Transcendent, that it is completely different form the nature of the things that the soul knows.[/center]
(St. Gregory of Nyssa)
Now, please take caution with what I am about to say, because I neither read enough nor do what I am about to ask of you- and that is to instead contemplate what you are reading. I think that you should read much less, and contemplate much longer. I don't know what that would equate to time-wise, but I think you and/or your FOC can figure out. Maybe read a chapter in the beginning of the day, after your morning prayers asking for the Lord to speak to you through the mysteries within the Holy Bible, and during the day contemplate what the message could be, and what your response is to this message?
I think the problem with me, at least, is I look at faith with intellectual curiosity, and thus am only fulfilled intellectually. I presume that once I delve into faith with spiritual hunger and thirst, then, and only then will I begin to feel the energy that restores soul, and brings new life.
and aldo all the other guys as well; Ahahahahahahaha well this I had to put in
Bro come to my world u r not alone I have done the exact same thing the very same thing really and I realise while u read its all good cause u r divulged into something else but when u move out of and do studies u r mind starts to wonder wit thoughts and frustration creeps in when u don’t get much done therefore u start swearing etc am I right I think so.
Well for starter stop looking and start working wit the solutions u already have in front of u. its that simple. U just got to look at it simply and do it. Stop complicating things by reading so much.
Why do u read so much. Cause u r looking for answers. Perhaps u r thinking u will come to some knowledge that will finally give that final power to start achieving what u want or think u should be achieving. Even more perhaps u think that doing so reading on end u will finally be able to move u out of u r spiritual stagnation that will grant u control over ur mind and finally bring about the perfect.
Well up till today from my personal experience I have learnt that
Knowledge is not enough u can have a lot of knowledge but that alone is not enough that gets me out of sinning or from bad thoughts or from swearing or grant better self control.
Knowledge helps it supports but it is not the ultimate answer. U will learn lots by reading get great insight but the true spiritual success will not come until u do the basic. my solution
Read bible pray real hard fast and ask God to move u to success wether it be from sin of sexual nature or swearing or eating or whatever.
Sort the above out wit ur priest an foc.
Every time u swear do 5 metanias or something like that
Second solution.
U r not a monk u job is not to become theological equipped right now u need to get ur study together to get a job and define a level of success that will open u the door of u r next level of spiritual achievement to go for. This is the very act of discipline and getting thorugh this wit God is the test. Doint lose sight of facts doint just focus on ur spiritually but focus also on what the facts are at hand. If u ve been reading for 6 HRS GET UP STOP READING CAUSE DOING THAT WONT GIVE U A 7 OR PASS IN UR SUBJECT NO WAY
KEEP THINGS REAL
So employ natural technique that will help u achieve self control and away wit bad habits read some good books one very Good book is “the university of success” read it. And if not then really go see a life coach or a Psychologist to help u wit dealing wit other people or not swearing I ve seen one it helped doesn’t mean ur mad.There’s a difference between a person who does something about his problem an others who just sit there doing nothing about it.Revaluate ur goals daily and refocus that the key try and build enthusiasm and COURAGE for ur study and believe in ur success wit God and thereafter everything else around u.Some body ones told me that courage is made of three things doubt and commitment to try and then action. So go ahead and try this stop living in fear and being overwhelmed but be filled wit enthusiasm and COURAGE for ur goals
And that was a very big read man cut it down others into a 4 line summary
GOD BLESS
Some people laugh when I say that, but satan really does try to tempt us and challenge us. However, Christ IS with us.. But we have to persevere and we can NOT give in to satan. Then, eventually, things will get back to normal.
I think you should talk to some people in the monestary. I promise you that many of thee people will tell you that they went through some VERY hard times in life when everything just seemed wrong. These happen a lot of times when a person first joined the monestary.. Things get bad and hard for them.
But they persevere, and keep their Faith. and then satan knows that he can not mess with them, and he gives up.
You might not believe me. If you don't, that is ok.. Call your Priest, or call a monestary and ask them yourselves! You will be surprised that they will say that what I am saying is true.
So persevere. Never give up. Have Faith in Christ. And these hardships will stop. :)
G-d Bless!