There are numerous souls who appear obstinate at a difficult moment. Let me say that they take an attitude like this: “Doesn’t God see that I am suffer- ing? Doesn’t He see that I am having a rough time? Doesn’t He see that I can’t stand it anymore?” God knows better than you how much you suffer. Yet, God expects nothing less from you than to be patient and to say humbly: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”. Will this hurt you? However, if you look more deeply, you’ll see that you don’t say it out of spite.
And in this manner, on the one hand, you stub- bornly refuse to say what God wants, and, on the oth- er, you do everything awkward, wrong or negative, which, in the long run, is resistance to God. It’s a pity.
It appears as if the word of God doesn’t work on us. We let it affect us only up to a certain point and we say: “All right, that’s enough”; and we don’t let it go further to soften and change our soul.
Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos (†)
From the book: Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos, “SPIRITUAL MESSAGES” Panorama Thessaloniki, 2017
