Thanksgiving and gratitude is a heartfelt joyous recognition of the divine benevolence and mercy toward us, unworthy ones, shown by Him freely and testified by our heart and mouth.
Often when someone throws a rock at a dog, rather than rushing at the person who threw the stone, the dog will run and bite the stone. We do the same thing. The tempter uses someone else to tempt us, either in word or deed, and, rather than deal with the tempter who threw the stone, we bite the rock, our fellow man that the hater of the good used against us.
Do not by any means allow yourself to open both ears to the slanderers and to draw your conclusions and decisions on the basis of what they alone have to say, and thereby judging the case in absentia without the presence of the person slandered to defend himself. Oftentimes many unjust and irrational decisions have followed from such slanderous accusations.
Do we forgive our neighbors their trespasses? God also forgives us in His mercy. Do we refuse to forgive? God, too, will refuse to forgive us. As we treat our neighbors, so also does God treat us. The forgiveness, then, of your sins or unforgiveness, and hence also your salvation or destruction, depend on you yourself, man. For without forgiveness of sins there is no salvation. You can see for yourself how terrible it is.
What guarantees a safe journey to eternity is effort, dignity, the sense of being unworthy before God, hope (the spiritual oxygen), consolation, and certainty. Not misery and compelled obedience and forced prayer; not tears and sadness - these all come from Satan. Yes, I ought to weep for my sins, but all the while hoping in God's love. But I cannot stand it if I cry because the devil wants me (to despair). Many times Satan crushes a person with despair and the devil becomes the victor. But this does not happen when one is like a child on his father's arm - trusting. Our trust in God is a ceaseless prayer that brings positive results. Despair comes from the devil. Don't say, 'Oh, what has happened to me?' but give yourself to God totally and hope in Him.
Keep from prying into other people's affairs, for such prying gives occasion for slander, judgement and other grievous sins. Why do you need to be concerned about others? Know and examine your own self.Recall your past sins and purge them with repentance and contrition of heart, and you will not look at what other people do.
I shall indicate to you the most direct and simple method to acquire the habit of silence: ...reflect as often as you can on the pernicious results of indiscriminate babbling and on the salutary results of wise silence. When you come to taste the good fruit of silence, you will no longer need lessons about it.
Cultivate the Jesus Prayer and a time will come when your heart will leap with joy, just as it does when you are about to see a person who you love very much.
Fasting is acceptable to God when abstention from food is accompanied by refraining from sins, from envy, from hatred, from calumny, from vainglory, from wordiness, from other evils. He who is fasting the true fast `that is agreeable' to God ought to shun all these things with all his strength and zeal, and remain impregnable and unshakeable against all the attacks of the evil one that are planned from that quarter. On the other hand, he who practices abstention from food, but does not keep self-control in the face of the aforesaid passions, is like unto one who lays down splendid foundations for a house, yet takes serpents and scorpions and vipers as fellow-dwellers therein.
Confirm yourself in this truth: that every Divine writing that is in agreement with the path of salvation instructs, teaches, chastises, and strengthens, that our path might be ever according to God.
One must train oneself in generous patience, so as to endure without complaint all that happens to us. We will possess patience when we accept everything that happens to us, both what is joyful and what is sad, without distinction, as from the hand of God.
The late Athonite Father Tikhon used to say: The prayer, 'Lord Jesus have mercy on us' is worth one hundred drachmas, but 'Glory to God' is word one thousand. Glorifying God is more valuable than anything else, because in the first instance, people often say the Jesus Prayer when needing something; but when one glorifies God in the midst of suffering, it is an ascesis.
