The will of God, Christian sermons. It's all in God's hands. God's Will is all there is - Self-Knowledge: The Path to Enlightenment

THE WILL OF GOD AND THE WILL OF HUMAN When we are faced with the need to make a choice, how much right decisions God provides in everyone special case? One or more? We pray for wisdom to know God's will in matters of choice life partner,

Chapter 39: About the fact that whoever makes judgments according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, even if he is not a priest, God’s will is on his side, and this cannot be ignored; and that God allows not only priests to teach, but also those who are spiritually pure; and about what the “mental priesthood” is and

Our will and the will of God 153. “The most luminous teaching of our Savior is this: “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10). Whoever sincerely says this prayer leaves his own will and places everything on the will of God... And the will inspired by demons is to justify us

The human will and the will of God The main problem of freedom is the question of the relationship between the human will and the will of God. If the will of God is the salvation of man, and God Himself is omnipotent, omniscient and omnigood, how to combine with this human freedom, which gives man

Maria Gorodova spoke with Bishop John of Belgorod

– Vladyka, let’s talk about what the will of God is. We pray “Our Father...” and, repeating after Christ, we say: “Thy will be done...” Every believer would like to measure his actions, his life with His will. The meaning of human life is to fulfill His will. But how to recognize it? It is clear that there is a general plan of God for the world and for us, there are commandments that the Lord gave us. But, on the other hand, every day a person faces a choice of what to do, the decision is not always obvious, so it is very important to understand what it is, the will of God, in relation to you?

– We live in a world where everyone relies only on themselves, moreover, we live in a world where a cult exists and is imposed strong people who crush everything, conquer everything, and are always successful. But if we look closely at this promoted image of a successful, strong person who meets all the standards of the time, we will see that behind all this there is emptiness, because no matter how strong, powerful and successful a person is, he can lose it all in one moment, everything will crumble if there is no God behind it. Jesus compared such people to a man who built his house on sand: “...everyone who hears... My words and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand; and the rain fell, and the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and he fell, and his fall was great.” And vice versa, the one who listens to His words and fulfills them will be like “a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24-27).

God's will for man is that God wants no one to perish, but everyone to have eternal life; God's will for man is the salvation of man. And at the same time, it is love towards him, although often this love is not even clear to a person, because he has his own ideas about what this love should be. The will of God towards man is both God’s favor and gracious mercy towards him. Previously, in Rus' they used the following phrase: “God takes pity on him,” and this meant simultaneously both that God takes pity on a person, and that He pities a person by His participation in his fate, by His visit to him.

The will of God is always good, and this is what we often forget when we grumble about what is sent to us.

– It is difficult not to grumble when it is illness or sorrow. Although here you can remember the answer of the old woman crying at the temple. When the priest asked her: “What is she crying about?” - she said: “God probably completely forgot me: this year I was not sick, and no sorrows happened to me.”

– Grief and suffering cleanse a person. Through sorrow a person becomes stronger, he begins to perceive differently the world and yourself in it. This is also a manifestation of the will of God when the Lord grants something to a person. And even though at first this may not be understood by a person, but after going through such trials and being cleansed, a person can perceive others differently, become different.

We always have a problem - coordinating our will with the will of the Lord. God manifests His will independently of ours; no one can interfere with its fulfillment. I will say it more harshly: man, as a creation, cannot even enter this sphere, he cannot intrude there. On the other hand, man is the creation of God, and, naturally, he depends on his Creator, and in a certain way participates in His plan, carries it out. Moreover, as God’s beloved creation, he possesses such a gift from God as free will. And very often a clash arises in a person between the will of the Lord and his own will, while even the freedom of choice given to him by God is understood in his own way. Free will is, first of all, will free from the burden of sin. And a person perceives this gift most often in the sense: I do what I want.

– So it turns out that free will is a gift from God, and we are using it incorrectly?

– Of course, because it is given to man to know the truth. Our freedom, free will is always a choice. For holy people it is a choice between lesser and greater good, for ordinary person is a choice between sin and virtue. But even people who are in sin are also not deprived of this gift - free will, they also have a choice - this is a choice between a greater sin and a lesser one.

– Vladyka, I would like you to stop at the fact that man cannot interfere with the fulfillment of God’s will. It seems to me that a lack of understanding of this often leads to the fact that we resist the inevitable just because it is inconvenient, unpleasant, etc.

– There is the Book of the Prophet Jonah in the Bible, it takes up a little more than a page – read it. It tells how to Jonah “the word of the Lord came” to rise and go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach in it, because his atrocities had reached God (Jon. 1:1). The Lord, by virtue of His mercy, desired the salvation of these people, “more than one hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know how to distinguish right hand from the left” (Jon. 4:11). But Jonah is trying to avoid fulfilling the will of God, he does not want to go and preach, he is not ready to be a prophet. By the way, many people mistakenly believe that prophets are predictors of the future; in fact, prophets are those who proclaim the will of God. So, Jonah, despite the fact that he was called by God to fulfill His will, tries in every possible way to avoid this - he even boards a ship that was heading in the other direction, as it is said, to “flee ... from the presence of the Lord” (Jon. 1.3 ). When we read the book, we understand the character of Jonah, it’s all similar to us, to our actions, although it happened in the 700s BC. Jonah did not manage to evade fulfilling the will of the Lord; he finally came to Nineveh, preached there, and the Ninevites believed in God and repented. God's will for the salvation of Nineveh was fulfilled.

– That is, you cannot evade fulfilling God’s will, otherwise the Lord will punish you?

- Well, this is not a punishment. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you” (John 15:16), says Jesus. It’s just that a person who goes against the will of God, like King Saul, finds himself outside the grace of God, he begins to live outside of it. I would like to give an example from the life of St. Innocent, the first bishop of Kamchatka, Aleutian and Kuril. In 1823, Bishop Mikhail of Irkutsk received a decree Holy Synod, which ordered that a priest be sent to the Russian-American Company colony on the island of Unalaska, among the Aleuts. The lot fell on one priest, who, citing the illness of his wife, refused. But twenty-six-year-old Father John, the future saint (in the world he was Ivan Popov), suddenly, feeling a calling within himself, he himself asked to go to this remote corner Russian Empire. And together with his wife and a one-year-old child on the ship "Constantine", having passed a lot of hardships and dangers, he reached the Aleutian ridge. Subsequently, he will translate the Catechism, prayers, the Gospel, the Acts of the Holy Apostles for the Aleuts and write the famous book in the Aleut-Lisev language: “Indicating the way to the Kingdom of Heaven.” This book will go through dozens of editions and will be translated into many languages. The children of Saint Innocent will graduate from the St. Petersburg Academy, and during his lifetime he himself will be called the Apostle of America and Siberia. But the fate of the priest, who evaded the lot that fell to him, turned out differently: he divorced his mother, and there were canonical violations, and ended his life as a soldier.

– So, a person who fulfills the will of God also receives relief?

– I would not pose the question in this way, because in this case there is a moment: “You - to me, I - to you.” The point here is about calling: if a person feels a calling within himself, he will go to the end, he will begin to fulfill this calling, no matter what he is. Because it is an internal motivating relationship between the creation and Its Creator. How to explain this when a person feels called? God called, and man cannot help but go. Although it requires strength from him. After all, every time a person begins to do the will of God, he enters into an invisible battle.

– Vladyka, explain that this is “invisible warfare”?

– In order for even unchurched people to understand what this is, let’s remember how difficult it is sometimes to get up in the morning and go to church for service if you have firmly decided to do this in the evening. A lot of obstacles of various kinds arise, which - and a believer will immediately understand this - are not just of an everyday nature. This is something that has to do with the spiritual world - after all, you are going to go to God, and not to the theater, for example. All these are obstacles, no matter in what form they appear, against our good desire to become closer to God. This example makes it clear what “spiritual warfare” is. And we must understand that everyone who does the will of God condemns himself to some kind of spiritual feat. But a person must perform it, look, the word “feat” has the same root as the word “movement,” and a person must move spiritually.

– But how to recognize the will of God? What are the signs that can be interpreted as a manifestation of the Lord's will for you?

– This happens in different ways: sometimes these are life circumstances, sometimes something comes to us during prayer, sometimes in a dream or even through friends. But it will always be through the word. Everything goes through the word: a person can hear one phrase, and it will change his whole life, as it happened with the not very churched person described in the book “ Candid stories wanderer to his spiritual father." Having entered the temple, he heard the words read from the apostolic epistle: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) - and suddenly this phrase became defining for him - it determined his entire later life. He wanted to know what it means to pray unceasingly. It happens that a person does not even understand what is happening to him, but he is simply ready to hear the will of God and fulfill it.

– When Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko) was asked about the coincidences that sometimes lead us through life, he answered: “As soon as I stop praying, the coincidences stop.” Apparently, he had these signs in mind?

– Probably, although for a person who is in search of the will of God, there is a danger of falling into false mysticism, when in everything that happens to him, he begins to look for some sign of God. Contacting a confessor protects a person from this.

– Master, is recognizing the will of God a dialogue with God?

– Of course, but prayer is also a dialogue, and calling, which we talked about today, comes from the word “call”: God calls. After all, when we turn to God, we hear an answer, and this answer is internal: a state arises in a person when he feels the ability and strength to solve some problems. All these are states of internal dialogue that a person conducts with the Creator.

– Vladyka, how to cultivate in yourself this ability to hear the will of God?

– Only one thing: first the child learns to hear and obey his parents, then this leads to obedience, first to the parents. Then he goes to the temple and learns to listen there. After all, what is obedience? This is the ability to listen. And then comes the execution. And here it is very important to dwell on the motives of obedience, on the motives of fulfilling His will. So, a person who does the will of God, who listens to God, must love Him and trust Him in everything.

– Yes, these are completely different motives: not out of fear, but out of love. A person, loving God, trusts Him and relies on Him in everything. Vladyka, what does it mean to “rely on the will of God”? Do nothing? Not trying to change the course of events?

– To rely on the will of God means to show both the highest love and the highest courage. Because you don’t distance yourself from life, you don’t switch off from it, you don’t shirk responsibility. On the contrary, you show the highest responsibility - to be a conductor of the will of God, whatever it may be.

There is such a prayer written by St. Philaret (Drozdov), Metropolitan of Moscow - it was his daily prayer. Read her words carefully.

Daily prayer of St. Philaret (Drozdov)

Lord, I don’t know what to ask of You? You alone know what I need. You love me more than I can love You. Father, give to Your servant what I myself cannot ask for. I do not dare to ask for either a cross or consolation, I only appear before You, my heart is open; You see needs that I don’t know. See and create according to Your mercy; strike and heal, overthrow and raise me! I am in awe and silent before Your holy will and Your destinies, incomprehensible to me. I offer myself as a sacrifice to You; teach me to pray. Pray within me yourself.

Maximilian Voloshin

Readiness

Didn’t I choose the hour of birth myself?

Age and kingdom, region and people,

To go through torment and baptism

Conscience, fire and waters?

To the apocalyptic beast

Thrown into the gaping maw,

Fallen deeper than it is possible to fall,

In the grinding and stench - I believe!

I believe in the correctness of the supreme powers,

Unchained the ancient elements,

And from the depths of charred Russia

I say: “You’re right to judge that way!”

It needs to be diamond hardened

To calcinate the entire thickness of existence,

If there is not enough wood in the smelting furnace,

Lord, this is my flesh!

When speaking about God's will, many scholars distinguish between three aspects of it found in the Bible. The first aspect is known as the fictitious, sovereign, or hidden will of God. This is God's "higher" will. This aspect of God's will comes from recognition of His sovereignty and other aspects of His nature. He points out that God sovereignly determines everything that will happen. In other words, there is nothing that can be outside the sovereign will of God. This aspect of God's will is described in verses such as Ephesians 1:11, where we learn that God “works out all things according to His own will and purpose,” and Job 42:2: “I know that all things are in Your power; nothing is impossible for You.” , no matter what You plan." This view of God's will is based on the idea that since God is sovereign, His will will never be changed. Everything is under His control.

This understanding of His sovereign will does not mean that God is the cause of everything that happens. Rather, it recognizes that since He is sovereign, He must at least authorize or permit whatever happens. This aspect of God's will implies that even if God passively allows things to happen, He must allow them to happen, since He always has the power and right to intervene. God can always decide whether to allow or stop actions and events in this world. Therefore, since He allows things to happen, they happen according to His will in this sense of the word.

While God's sovereign will is often hidden from us until something happens, there is another aspect of His will that is obvious to us: His intelligible or manifested will. As the name suggests, this aspect of God's will means that God has chosen to reveal part of His will in the Bible. God's discernible will tells us what He wants us to do or not do. For example, thanks to this, we can know that God's will is for us not to steal, for us to love our enemies, for us to repent of our sins and that we can be holy just as He is holy. This expression of God's will is manifested both in His Word and in our consciousness through which God recorded His moral law in the hearts of all people. God's laws—whether in Scripture or in our hearts—are binding on us. We are responsible when we disobey them.

Understanding this aspect of God's will recognizes that while we have the power and ability to disobey God's commandments, we do not have the right to do so. Thus, there is no excuse for our sins, and we cannot claim that by choosing to sin we were simply carrying out the decree of a sovereign God or His will. Judas carried out the sovereign will of God by betraying Christ just as the Romans crucified Him. This does not justify their sins. This did not make their actions any less evil or treacherous, and these people were responsible for their rejection of Christ (Acts 4:27–28). Although God authorizes or allows sin in His sovereign will, we are still accountable to Him for that sin.

The third aspect of God's will that we see in the Bible is the permissive or perfect will of God. This aspect describes God's attitude and determines what is pleasing to Him. For example, although it is clear that God does not take pleasure in the death of a sinner, it is also clear that He allows his death. This aspect of God's will is evident in numerous verses of Scripture that indicate what God does or does not take pleasure in. For example, in 1 Timothy 2:4 we see that God desires “that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth,” but we know that it is God’s sovereign will that “no one can come to Me unless The Father who sent Me will draw him, and on the last Day I will raise him up” (John 6:44).

If we are not careful, we can easily become overly involved or even obsessed with seeking God's "will" for our lives. Seeking His secret, hidden or fictitious will is a futile exercise. God did not choose to show us this aspect of His will. What we must seek to know is His intelligible and revealed will. The true mark of spirituality is found when we are willing to know and live according to the will of God as revealed in Scripture, which can be summarized as follows: “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Our responsibility is to obey God's revealed will and not to speculate on what is hidden from us. While we should strive to be moved by the Holy Spirit, we should never forget that the Holy Spirit primarily leads us to truth and conforms us to the image of Christ so that our lives glorify God. God calls us to live our lives according to every word that comes from His mouth.

Living according to His revealed will must be main goal our life. Romans 12:1–2 summarizes this truth—we are called to present our bodies “to God as a living sacrifice, sanctified and acceptable to Him. Only such service is truly spiritual. Do not conform to the way of life of this world, but let God transform you by renewing your mind so that you can comprehend what He wants from you, what is good, acceptable and perfect for Him.” To know the will of God, we must immerse ourselves in the scriptures of God's Word, saturating our minds with it and praying that the Holy Spirit will transform us through the renewing of our minds and lead us into that which is good, acceptable, and perfect—according to the will of God.

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priest Mikhail Shpolyansky

It must be said unequivocally: the will of God is the only final criterion of good and evil in this world. The commandments of God are not absolute, the commandments of God are in a certain sense statistical. So, in the overwhelming majority of cases, in millions, billions of cases to one, killing from the point of view of Christianity is unacceptable, but this does not mean that one should never kill. We know that our holy leaders, the noble princes Alexander Nevsky and Dmitry Donskoy, acquired the Kingdom of Heaven, despite the fact that their swords were stained with the blood of many enemies of the faith and the Fatherland. If they had mechanically adhered to the letter of the Law, Rus' would still have been an ulus of Genghis Khan’s or Batu’s empire, and Orthodoxy on our land would most likely have been destroyed. It is also known that Venerable Sergius Radonezh blessed the Battle of Kulikovo and even sent two schema-monks to the army.

These are the most striking and obvious examples, but one can say about almost any commandment of God that there are cases when it is God’s will to break this commandment in this particular situation. Here is the commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” that is, do not lie. Lying is a dangerous sin precisely because it is somehow little noticeable and little perceptible, especially in the form of deceit: to keep something silent, to distort something, so that it is beneficial either for oneself or for someone else. We don’t even notice this deceit, it passes by our consciousness, we don’t even see that it is a lie. But this is exactly what terrible word The devil is named in the only prayer given by the Lord Himself to the disciples, “Our Father.” The Savior calls the devil evil. Therefore, every time we deceive, we seem to identify ourselves with an unclean spirit, with the spirit of darkness. Scary. So, you can’t lie, it’s scary. But let us remember the chapter with the remarkable title “about what should not lie” from the teachings of one of the pillars of Christian asceticism. It says, among other things, that sometimes you have to tell a lie not for the sake of self-interest, but out of love, out of compassion. But, it is true, the saint makes such a wonderful reservation (remember that this reservation was made in the 4th century after the Nativity of Christ for Palestinian monks): “he should not do this often, but only in exceptional cases, once in many years.” This is the measure of the saints.

Thus, we see that the two-thousand-year experience of the Church, the experience of life in Christ, places the final criterion of good and evil not on the letter of the law, but on the fulfillment of the will of God (“the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” -). And if there is the will of God to take the sword and go to defend your people, your loved ones, then fulfilling this will of God is not sin, but righteousness.
And so the question arises with all its severity: “How to know the will of God?”

Of course, knowing the will of God is a matter of all life and no brief rules it cannot be exhausted. Perhaps, Metropolitan of Tobolsk illuminated this topic most fully among the holy fathers. He wrote a wonderful book, “Or on the conformity of the human will with the Divine will.” "Iliotropion" means sunflower. That is, this is a plant that, turning its head behind the sun, constantly strives for light. Saint John gave this poetic title to his book about knowledge of the will of God. Although it was written more than a century ago, it is nevertheless surprising modern book, both in language and in spirit. She is interesting, understandable and relatable to modern man. The advice of the wise saint is quite applicable in conditions of life that have radically changed compared to recent times. The task of retelling “” is not set here - this book must be read in its entirety. We will try to offer only the most general scheme solution of this most important issue for the salvation of the soul.

Let's consider this example: here in front of us is a sheet of paper on which a certain dot has been placed invisibly. Can we immediately, without any information, by “pointing a finger,” so to speak, determine (essentially guess) the location of this point? Naturally - no. However, if we draw several visible points in a circle around this invisible point, then, based on them, we can with a high probability determine the desired point - the center of the circle.
Are there such “visible points” in our lives with the help of which we could know the will of God? Eat. What are these dots? These are certain methods of turning to God, to the experience of the Church and to our soul on the path of man’s knowledge of the will of God. But each of these techniques is not self-sufficient. That's when there are several of these techniques, when they are combined and taken into account in to the extent necessary, only then we are with our hearts! - we can know what the Lord actually expects from us.

So, the first “point”, the first criterion- this, of course, is Holy Scripture, directly the Word of God. Based on the Holy Scriptures, we can quite clearly imagine the boundaries of God’s will, that is, what is acceptable for us and what is completely unacceptable. There is a commandment of God: “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind... thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (). Love is the final criterion. From here we conclude: if something is done out of hatred, then it automatically falls outside the bounds of the possibility of God’s will.

What are the difficulties along this path? Paradoxically, what makes divinely inspired Scripture a truly Great Book is its universality. A reverse side universality is the impossibility of unambiguously interpreting Scripture in each specific everyday case outside the colossal spiritual experience of life in Christ. And this, sorry, is not said about us... But, nevertheless, there is a point...

Next criterion- Sacred Tradition. This is an implementation experience Holy Scripture in time. This is the experience of the holy fathers, this is the experience of the Church, which for 2000 years has been searching for the answer to the question of what it means to live, fulfilling the will of God. This experience is enormous, priceless and practically provides answers to all life’s questions. But there are problems here too. Here the difficulty is the opposite - discreteness of experience. Indeed, precisely because this experience is so vast, it includes many different options for solving spiritual and everyday problems. Apply it to specific situations It is almost impossible without the grace-filled gift of prudence - again, extremely rare in modern life.

Some specific temptations are also associated with the book teachings of the holy fathers and elders. The fact is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the advice of elders refers to to a specific person in the specific circumstances of his life and may change as these circumstances change. We talked about the fact that God's providence for the salvation of man can be different. And why? Because, as a rule, a person does not follow the direct path - the path of perfection - due to his weakness (laziness?). Today he did not do what he was supposed to do. What can he do? Die? No! In this case, the Lord provides for him some other, perhaps more thorny, long, but equally absolute path of salvation. If he has sinned, and violation of God’s will is always a voluntary or involuntary sin, then this path of salvation necessarily lies through repentance. For example, today the elder says: “You should do this and that.” And the person avoids fulfilling the spiritual order. Then he again comes to the elder for advice. And then the elder, if he sees repentance in him, says what he should do in the new situation. Says perhaps the opposite of the previous word. After all, the person did not follow the previous advice, he acted in his own way, and this radically changed the situation and created new - primarily spiritual - circumstances. Thus, we see that the individuality of the advice of the elders in specific cases of life is an objective obstacle to the fact that one can simply say: “Read the advice of the elders, follow them - and you will live according to the will of God.” But this is the point...

The third criterion is the voice of God in a person's heart. What is this? Conscience. The Apostle Paul said surprisingly and comfortingly that “when the pagans, who do not have the law, by nature do what is lawful, then, not having the law, they are a law unto themselves, they show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience testifies... " (). In a sense, we can say that conscience is also the image of God in man. And although the “image of God” is a complex concept, one of its manifestations is the voice of conscience. Thus, the voice of conscience can to a certain extent be identified with the voice of God in a person’s heart, revealing to him the will of the Lord. So, it is very important for those who want to live according to the will of God to be honest and sober in hearing the voice of their conscience (the question is how capable we are of this).

Another criterion, the fourth (of course, not diminished in importance, because all points in the circle are equal) is prayer. A completely natural and obvious way for a believer to know the will of God. I'll tell you an example from my life. There was a difficult period for her: there were so many problems concentrated, so much thinking - it seemed that life had reached a dead end. There is some kind of endless labyrinth of roads ahead, where to step, which way to go - it’s completely unclear. And then my confessor said to me: “Why are you wise? Pray every evening. There is no need for any extra effort - say a prayer every evening: “Lord, show me the path, and I will go there.” Every time before going to bed, say this to bow to the ground“The Lord will definitely answer.” So I prayed for two weeks, and then an extremely unlikely event occurred, which resolved all my problems and determined my future life. The Lord answered...

The fifth criterion is the blessing of the confessor. Happy is the one whom the Lord allows to receive the blessing of the elder. Unfortunately, in our time - “the elders are taken away from the world” - this is an exceptional rarity. It’s good if you have the opportunity to receive the blessing of your confessor, but this is also not so easy, not everyone now has a confessor. But even in the first centuries of Christianity, when people were rich in spiritual gifts, the holy fathers said: “Pray to God to send you a person who will guide you spiritually.” That is, even then, finding a confessor was a definite problem, and then it was necessary to especially beg for a spiritual leader. If there is neither an elder nor a confessor, then you can receive a blessing from a priest. But nowadays, time spiritual impoverishment, you need to be quite sober. You cannot follow the principle mechanically: everything that a priest says is necessarily from God. It is naive to assume that all priests can be confessors. The Apostle says: “Are all Apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are everyone miracle workers? Does everyone have gifts of healing?” (). One should not assume that the charisma of the priesthood in itself is automatically the charisma of prophecy and clairvoyance. Here you must always be careful and look for such a spiritual leader, communication with whom would bring obvious benefits to the soul.

The next criterion is advice from spiritually experienced people. This is the experience of the life of a pious person and this is our ability to learn from a good (and maybe negative - also experience) example. Remember how in the movie “The Shield and the Sword” someone said: “Only fools learn from their own experience, smart people learn from the experience of others.” The ability to perceive the experience of pious people, communication with whom the Lord has given us, the ability to listen to their advice, find in them what is necessary for oneself and rationally use it - also a way of knowing the will of God.

There is also a very important criterion for determining the will of God. The criterion that the holy fathers talk about. So, the monk writes about this in his famous “Ladder”: that which is from God pacifies the human soul, that which is against God confuses the soul and brings it into a restless state. When the result of our activity is the acquisition of peace in the soul about the Lord - not laziness and drowsiness, but a special state of active and bright peace - then this is also an indicator of the correctness of the chosen path.

The eighth criterion is the ability to feel the circumstances of life; perceive and soberly evaluate what is happening around us. After all, nothing happens for nothing. A hair from a person’s head will not fall without the will of the Almighty; a drop of water will not roll down, the twig will not break; no one will come up and insult us, and will not kiss us, if this was not allowed by the Lord for some kind of admonition of us. This is how God creates the circumstances of life, but our freedom is in no way limited by this: the choice of behavior in all circumstances is always ours (“... the will of man that chooses...”). We can say that living according to God's will is our natural response to circumstances created by God. Of course, “naturalness” must be Christian. If the circumstances of life develop, for example, in such a way that in order to provide for the family it seems necessary to steal, then, of course, this cannot be the will of God, for this contradicts the commandments of God.

And another most important criterion, without which nothing else can exist - patience: “... with your patience save your souls” (). Everything is received by the one who knows how to wait, who knows how to entrust to God the solution to his problem, who knows how to give the Lord the opportunity to Himself create what He has provided for us. There is no need to impose your will on God. Of course, sometimes it happens that you need to decide on something in an instant, do something in one second, accomplish something, respond. But this, again, is some kind of special providence of God, and even in these circumstances there will definitely be some kind of clue. In most cases, the most optimal way is to give the Lord the opportunity to reveal His will in our lives through circumstances so obvious that there is no escape from it. Pray and wait, being, as long as possible, in the state in which the Lord has placed you, and the Lord will show you His will for the future of life. In practice, this means not to rush into making responsible decisions (for example, Fr. I.K. advises newlyweds to “see the four seasons of the year” in the state of the bride and groom) and not to change their everyday position without a clear need: “Everyone remain in the rank in which whom he is called to" ().

So, we have outlined those criteria, “points” - Holy Scripture and Tradition, conscience, prayer, blessing and spiritual advice, a peaceful state of soul, sensitive attitude to the circumstances of life, patience - which give us the opportunity to know God’s providence for our salvation. And here a completely different, paradoxical question arises: “Are we aware of it - why do we need to know the will of God?” I remember the words of an experienced priest, the fraternal confessor of one of oldest monasteries Rus': “It’s scary to know the will of God.” And in this there is deep meaning, which is somehow frivolously overlooked in conversations about knowing the will of God. It is indeed scary to know the will of God, for this knowledge is a colossal responsibility. Remember the words of the Gospel: “That servant who knew the will of his master, and was not ready, and did not do according to his will, will be beaten many times; but whoever did not know and did something worthy of punishment will receive less punishment. And from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required, and to whom much has been entrusted, from him more will be demanded” (). Imagine: coming to the Court of God and hearing: “You knew! It was revealed to you what I expected from you - and you deliberately did the opposite!” - that’s one thing, but to come and humbly pray: “Lord, I’m so unreasonable, I don’t understand anything. I tried as best I could to do good, but things didn’t work out right.” What can we take from this! Of course, he did not deserve to be with Christ - but still, “there will be fewer beats.”

I often hear: “Father, how to live according to the will of God?” They ask, but they don’t want to live according to His will. This is why it is scary to know the will of God - because then you need to live according to it, and this is often not at all what we want. From a truly gracious elder, Fr. , I heard such sad words: “They are trading my blessings! Everyone asks me: “What should I do?” Everyone says they live by my blessings, but almost no one does what I tell them.” This is scary.

It turns out that “to know the will of God” and “to live according to the will of God” are not at all the same thing. It is possible to know the will of God - she has left us with a great experience of such knowledge. But to live according to the will of God is personal feat. And a frivolous attitude is unacceptable here. Unfortunately, there is very little understanding of this. Wailings are heard from all sides: “Give it to us!” Show us! Tell us how to act according to God’s will?” And when you say: “God will bless you to do such and such,” they still act in their own way. So it turns out - “Tell me the will of God, but I will live the way I want.”

But, my friend, the moment will come when God’s justice, burdened by our indolence in sins, will be forced to overcome God’s mercy, and we will have to answer for everything - both for indulging passions and for “playing with the will of God.” This issue must be taken very seriously. In essence, this is a matter of life and salvation. Whose will - the Savior or the tempter - do we choose every moment of our lives? Here you need to be reasonable, sober, and honest. You should not “play at knowing the will of God” by running around priests for advice until you hear from someone the “will of God” that pleases you. After all, in this way one’s self-will is subtly justified, and then there is no room for saving repentance. It’s better to say honestly: “Forgive me, Lord! Of course, Your will is holy and high, but due to my weakness I do not achieve this. Have mercy on me, a sinner! Grant me forgiveness for my weaknesses and grant me a path on which I would not perish, but could come to You!”

So, there is God’s providence for the salvation of every person, and there is the only value in this world - life according to the will of God. The Lord gives us the opportunity to understand the universal mystery - the will of the Creator to save His fallen creation. We just need to have a firm determination not to play at knowing the will of God, but to live according to it - this is the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about prudence - without it, knowledge of the will of God is impossible. And indeed - we talked about the fact that in specific life circumstances Only by spiritual reasoning can one correctly interpret both the truths of Holy Scripture, the experience of the holy fathers, and everyday collisions. Mechanical adherence to the letter of the law outside of spiritual reasoning - for example, giving away property for the sake of achieving perfection (without ripening the soul for achievement; in fact, outside of humility) - is a direct path either to spiritual delusion or to falling into despondency. But the spirit of reasoning is not a criterion, it is a gift. It is not “mastered” by consciousness (like, for example, the experience of the holy fathers) - it is sent down from above in response to our prayer and, like any gift of grace, rests only in a humble heart. Let us proceed from this - and enough is enough.
And again let us listen to the words of the Apostle Paul: “Therefore, from the day we heard about this, we have not ceased to pray for you and ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of God in everything pleasing Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God...” ().