I want my spiritual life back

Comments

• CopticSoldier

  June 2011

  Hi Arsema,
  
  May God grant you your desire, I have a little thought which I hope is of some benefit.
  
  The monks in the desert are more connected with the services and ministry in the cities than we are because they always pray for us and ask God to bless our endeavours, to provide peace for us and to help the Church to flourish.  If it wasn't for the prayers of the monks there might not be a Church on earth for us to serve in.
  
  If its not possible for you to serve right now you can always spend time praying while you work like the monks do for the services in the Church. That way you'll still be involved in the service in secret.
  
  You can also use your current circumstances as an opportunity for ministry; if you've just had a child or you could invite other young mothers over to your place some time and read the gospel or pray together.  That way you can encourage one another and pray that God instruct you how to be good mothers and to serve Him in a God fearing way.
  
  Its also true that you can't serve the children of God until you've worked out how to serve Him with your own children.
  
  Please pray for my weakness,
  
  LiD
  
• Arsema21

  June 2011

  Thank you LiD for your worth full advice, Yes i am trying to do pray and watch and hear sermons, some times reading David hymns and some spiritual books. The reason i said " i want my spiritual life back" because keep going to God house and serve him save you from different things and you fear God, you full fill of God love. So that you respect his words, keep his commands and rules of church.  You are safe always because you are in God's hand. This time in my life, i couldn't feel all this thing that much instead every time new things keep happing to me, which are not good thing for development of spiritual life. That put me in fear . Out of faith and far from God. You know this time i saw a lot of hurtful thing happen to me and in my marriage according to in our spirituality. We couldn't give value for church rules in our relationship and that is why i feel like lost and i tried but i couldn't do it by my self, my husband become careless for the rules of church this time and when we discuss about it we don't agree each other but he keep told me let just keep our marriage , go to church every sunday and focus on our work and education. That make me so sad and disturb, we need to give first place for God and other things will follow up next. That is how we keep growing and get blessing from God. If we don't respect church rules that is not respect of God either. What i have to do know, is that fine just keep going like this or ......? I will wait you answers my fathers, elder brothers and sisters
  Keep me in you prayer
  God Bless
• Natalie I

  June 2011

  Hello Arsema,i also used to be a sunday school teacher but have left that service for other services, but what i have to offer on this topic is this: Service is very difficult even for me and my only other worries are school and my mother and brother and my service in my church has stressed the relationship between me and my mother very much and through this i have been taught that God is never disappointed nor does he disapprove that someone focus on the needs of their family rather than serving in the church; we serve God when serving our family because when serving our family we are serving other children of God, in your situation you have the opportunity to raise a child of God that may be firm in faith and lifted in the hand of God also you have a marriage capable of reaching the heights of spirituality for you learn from one another, he shall give you his spiritual insights and you to give him yours furthermore the two of you can grow spiritually through encouraging the spiritual growth of your child this is %100 a service to God, and yes serving your family is a great service but serving your family doesn't mean you can't serve the church on a small scale, serving the church can be as small as picking up a piece of trash the small and simple things are what counts the most another example, there is an older lady at my church and when i get the chance i try to help her out of the car and into the church maybe there is someone at your church like this that you can offer to help now and then, these kind of small things don't necessarily take extra effort or remove your focus from your family, i hope i helped at least a little, God bless you and your family :)   
• Arsema21

  June 2011

  Ok thank you Corinthians5:7 i will do that, and that is the choice i have right now. As you said my elders, it might be What God want from me this time. Pray for me please to know what God needs from me and in order to do it and keep it in my life
  May God Bless
• mabsoota

  June 2011

  good post, 2corinthians5:7.
  sometimes giving up things that 'look good' before others is the real sacrifice in order to do good deeds for our small child or old neighbour that no-one else sees.
• Natalie I

  June 2011

  you are more than welcome Arsema may God guide and comfort you and thank you mabsoota for your kind words I admittedly I have only been serving for a few years but when i started there were not enough servants to keep up with the needs of the church and in turn had a chance to learn about service thank God
  -God bless :)
• bigeee

  June 2011

  we hold our ownselfs back due to life but its our own faults its simple if we pursue the lord we will not go wrong
• Arsema21

  June 2011

  Thank you, Mabsoota i got ur email too I really appreciate the advice you have given me. Thank you for all my elders, i value all of your opinions and advices.  May God give you the desire of your hearts and fill you with his unconditional love.
  keep me in you prayer!
  
• CopticSoldier

  June 2011

  [quote author=Arsema21 link=topic=11661.msg139954#msg139954 date=1308544162]
  Thank you LiD for your worth full advice, Yes i am trying to do pray and watch and hear sermons, some times reading David hymns and some spiritual books. The reason i said " i want my spiritual life back" because keep going to God house and serve him save you from different things and you fear God, you full fill of God love. So that you respect his words, keep his commands and rules of church.  You are safe always because you are in God's hand. This time in my life, i couldn't feel all this thing that much instead every time new things keep happing to me, which are not good thing for development of spiritual life. That put me in fear . Out of faith and far from God. You know this time i saw a lot of hurtful thing happen to me and in my marriage according to in our spirituality. We couldn't give value for church rules in our relationship and that is why i feel like lost and i tried but i couldn't do it by my self, my husband become careless for the rules of church this time and when we discuss about it we don't agree each other but he keep told me let just keep our marriage , go to church every sunday and focus on our work and education. That make me so sad and disturb, we need to give first place for God and other things will follow up next. That is how we keep growing and get blessing from God. If we don't respect church rules that is not respect of God either. What i have to do know, is that fine just keep going like this or ......? I will wait you answers my fathers, elder brothers and sisters
  Keep me in you prayer
  God Bless
  
  
  It sounds like a tough one; there must be a lot going on in your life with your baby and your studies, I also cannot fully appreciate your situation because I'm still single but I have some thoughts that I hope will be of benefit to you.
  
  There is a demon or sin that the desert father used to talk about called 'Acedia' or the noonday demon. It used to come to saints like St Anthony in their struggles and left them with a feeling that their service was dry, unrewarding and it might even leave them feeling a little sorry for themselves:
  
  [quote=desert fathers]While struggling with the demon of acedia Antony cried out to God, “How can I be saved?”  In answer he was given a vision of himself sitting down at his work, intermittently standing for prayer with outstretched arms, then sitting back down to work for an interval.  “Do this”, he was told, “and you will be saved.”
  
  The temptation when we're confronted with this demon is to do something to make our religious life interesting like starting mission work or doing something which involves more contact with people and feels like a more rewarding service.  In the place of this we sometimes unknown to us see this demon as a calling to a different service when its really something that happens (like in this story with St Anthony) to encourage us to persevere through unpleasant times.  If we leave our struggle for something which is more interesting we've been beaten by this demon because its aim is to make us give up or get bored and move on.  What we really need to do is stay put and try to involve Christ in what we're doing like St Anthony did by mixing work with prayer.  By doing this Anthony was able to have God's presence with him in a way which would have been impossible has he not been confronted by this demon.  The result of this battle with the devil is that Anthony gave more of his heart and life to God.
  
  St Anthony also has the following saying:
  
  [quote=desert fathers]Someone asked Abba Anthony, "What must one do in order to please God?" The old man replied, "Pay attention to what I tell you: whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes, whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved."
  
  The key saying here is 'in whatever place you live do not easily leave it.' The reason is because St Anthony isn't talking about moving house in our normal worldly sense; his advice was to a junior monk and a monks persistence in the life of struggle means staying in their cell and enduring the troubles and temptations which lead them away from it.  In our own case our 'cell' could be our marriage or our unfruitful service or anything else; God wants us to fight to beat this feeling because it gives us a much better sense of His presence and in the case of your current situation a more faithful and genuine marriage.
  
  This might not make much sense but please consider this saying from the Catholic monk brother Lawrence:
  
  [quote=brother lawrence]We need to persevere with faithfulness in prayer during those periods of dryness, when we are insensible to God's presence and prayer feels empty. It is during these dry periods that God tries our love to Him. That's precisely when we should make good and effectual acts of resignation; even one such act would oftentimes very much promote our spiritual advancement.
  
  Our relationship with God is a very real one; we can do things which please Him and equally we can do things which displease Him.  An eastern monk once said that the time when we pray and feel that God isn't listening is the beginning of prayer because prayer is a relationship; both parties have to want to meet each other face to face for a relationship to be formed.  Sometimes - as hard as it is to admit - its a good thing that God doesn't show up because we're not ready for it.  If we pray when we're angry or jealous and God appears it might be very humiliating for us like it is on the day of judgement if we're called at a time when we're not ready.  The other part of it is that we try to put God (going back to the first story of St Anthony) into small parts of our lives rather than our whole life.  in the context of the bridegroom who knocks at the door of the heart; we might pray for 30 minutes a day and this is the time we want to face God but He could be knocking on the door of our heart the remaining 23.5 hours.  We need to meet in prayer of mutual terms like 2 friends who agree mutual times to meet and share with one another.
  
  Time of struggle and dryness aren't always things to be avoided, they're opportunities (if we listen to Brother Lawrence) to say - okay God I will endure this feeling of emptiness for You and I'm going to wait for You to come and meet me when You're ready.  I'll bet that if you make this decision - guess what - it won't be long until God comes because God is everywhere. He never really leaves us, He just goes a little quiet from time to time and then He comes back again when the time is right.
  
  The eastern saint Silouan of Mount Athos had a vision from God before he became a monk and was told 'keep your mind in hell and don't lose hope.'  This is a really tough saying and it means that like the famous weeping saint Arsenious we must keep the fear of judgement before our eyes at all times but we must always remember with it our hope in Christ.  King David says in the psalms 'your rod and your staff they comfort me', we can understand the staff of guidance comforting us but what about the rod of punishment?  The reason that King David says this is because he understands that God sends hard times our way to bring us closer to Him and as much as we don't like to admit it when need God to be hard with us sometimes.  St Basil once said that a man congratulates a doctor who amputates an infected part of our body but we criticise God when he tries to do the same to infected parts of our soul by sending us troubles and hard times.  If we start to think like the saints we can actually look forward to hard times because we know God will reveal His face to us in them.
  
  The last thing is that even though these are sayings from monks in the desert they have a very special meaning for married people.  The reason is because a monk wants to keep their heart chaste and pure just like a married person does and if we seek to find God we will also find our husbands, wives, brothers and sisters with Him.
  
  Please pray for my weakness.
  
  LiD
• mabsoota

  June 2011

  thanks for posting, bigeee and lifeindeath, i am learning a lot here  :)
• Arsema21

  June 2011

  I couldn't log in to this website for one week , i think, it was my computer problem any ways. I Thank you LifeInDeath, You teach me a lot,I will keep praying may God give me strength and his answer,pray for me for that, thank you my elders!