Question: Glory to Jesus Christ! Father, I want to dedicate my activities and work to God, but it's difficult for me because of the people who work there. Here someone says something wrong, there someone swears incessantly, and here someone gets on my nerves.What should I do to constantly think about God? How can I pray constantly?
The answer of Fr Andrew Lemeshonok:
Well, you see, if you are always blaming other people for getting in the way of your life with God, you will never be at peace. If someone truly wants to walk with God, they will manage it anywhere, even in the market. As Father Nikolai Guryanov once said to me, "It is good even in prison" – if you are living with God.
And believe me, it can be hard even in a monastery. All sorts of people, different moods, tempers, characters – do you see? You simply have to live with God. Do not lose your temper, do not look down on others, but feel for them, because there are things they have not understood that have been shown to you. Feel for them, help them, pray for them. Then you will be at peace. You are not going to find some perfect, spotless place anywhere – everything is touched by sin. And you and I, we are touched by it too. So we must look at things soberly: if your heart is set on serving God, you can do it wherever you land.
Take Anthony the Great, for example. He once went into a shrine (he was praying there), and the demons inside beat him almost to death. They dragged him out of that temple barely alive, probably already unconscious. And he said, "Carry me back!" Can you imagine the spiritual strength of the man? That is why he is called Anthony the Great. But with us, the moment we face some trouble, or misunderstanding, or difficulty, we are off running to somewhere we imagine will be free of it – only to find there is even more!
People say, "Oh, I have got a family, I have got all these worries; if only I could get away to that place!" But do they have any idea what it is really like over there? "It is always better where we are not." Learn to appreciate what you already have.
