Anxiety departs with trust in God
People create their problems by having the wrong attitude before God
–What would you like to talk about this evening? Do you have any topics that you think are good to discuss?
–Could you speak to us about anxiety?
–As you know from the fathers of the Orthodox Church, evil is the absence of good. Evil cannot exist in and of itself. It is the same with darkness. Darkness is the absence of light. Wherever there is light, it would be impossible for us to say that we could gather darkness in order to darken the light. If there is light, darkness has no hold; it is non-existent because it only exists in the absence of light. This is also how evil exists in the absence of good.
When God is present in the soul, when He lives inside the soul, there is no room for the devil; he has no place there. When the light of God is present in the soul, when God is present as light, there is no room for darkness. Even if we want to put darkness in the soul, it stands no chance because spiritual darkness is the absence of the light of God.
The situation is the same with anxiety. Anxiety is non-existent. People create anxiety for themselves, as they do with so many things. We must be careful of this. People create their problems by having the wrong attitude before God. Generally speaking, a person could have a mistaken perspective of themselves, of others, of reality, and truth. But it is specifically when a person has the wrong attitude before God, that they create thousands of issues for themselves. Pay close attention to this. There might be some people who would hear what I am speaking about and think that I am out of touch with life, with society, and have no idea about reality. But what if I told you that I am more in touch than you are? Yes, I actually am! I am a priest living in this world, and I come into contact with the deep, hidden things of people. Μany times these things are darker, more cunning, and worse than the obvious, so I have some understanding of reality.
So, all of the trials that we endure, all of those trials which tyrannize us so much, we create them ourselves. Please pay attention to this. Do not say, ‘What can we do since others create problems for us?’ I can possitively assure you that even if others harm us, we cannot be affected if we do not give in to these things, allowing ourselves to be harmed. Everything serves man, everything works for our benefit, even the worst of things. It is because we, as human beings, do not approach and face things correctly that we allow these things to harm us, traumatize us, weigh us down, pressure us, and to create anxieties.
You turn the knife that wounded you
Many times, the way in which you react when you worry, have some pain, or are wounded, looks like this: Someone stabs you and you take the knife and begin to twist it inside the wound. Fine, someone hurt you. Remove the knife and look at how you are going to heal your wound. But no, you do not remove the knife. Instead, you hold it there and even if someone wants to remove it you do not let them. And as if that is not enough, you even twist it inside the wound.
This should not seem strange to you. What do you think? When someone, for example, says something hurtful that traumatizes and wounds you, you think of it constantly, have it constantly in your mind, and do not want to forget it, right? And if that is not enough, you become angry with the person who said this, you do wrong and hate them, and you want to take revenge! In reality, all of these things mean this: You turn the knife that wounded you. But if you had immediately removed it and tossed it far from you, very little damage would have been done. You turn the knife and in no way want to remove it. Who is mostly to blame now? Fine, someone hurt you. That is their business. But if that person is to blame once, because they stab you, the fact that you hold onto the knife and do not remove it, and even turn it, makes you to blame one hundred times, a thousand times more.
It is true that the evil began from what the other person did in the beginning. But if we analyze this and look deeper, we will see that we also contributed to the situation. No one is completely innocent. God loves us, He protects and covers us. He does not leave us at the mercy of others. If God allows us to suffer something, it means that we need it and we can take this situation and say, ‘Lord, since this situation happened, I must have needed it. Something was not going right in me. So, I am the deeper cause. Forgive the person who hurt me and what they did.’ From then on, we will confront things correctly and not turn the knife inside our wound.
Trust God as a small child trusts its father
We ourselves create all the tribulations that we suffer in this world. It is most certain that as we work with others we bother them, they bother us; we do them wrong, and they do us wrong. We all think only of our own interests and want to live at the expense of others. Therefore, since we love ourselves, eventually we incur from others that which we incur. But we ourselves are the deeper and first cause. As I say so often in these homilies, the great evil in life is not that which happens to us. The great evil, no matter what happens to us, is if we do not confront things correctly. If we face a situation as people of God, as something within the providence of God, as something that God knows, something God controls and allows for our benefit; if we face it with our spiritual understanding, as something that will benefit us, then it cannot harm us at all and there is no anxiety.
Excluding those children who are born with a particular sensitivity, it is without exception that children do not have anxiety. It is adults, as they slowly begin to realize the responsibility they have for themselves –the responsibilities of life– who have anxiety. Why is it that a small child does not get anxious? It is not simply that its logic and mind have not matured, but that it trusts its father and mother. A child who has no father or mother, who has no one, will cry and cry until it has completely exhausted itself. But when a child has its father and mother who smile at it, hug it, feed it, and protect it, it has no problems. Even if the entire world fell apart, that child would be carefree.
When a person trusts God like this, they do not have anxiety. And this is something that is possible. Please pay attention to this. It is not impossible. It can happen. Just as the small child trusts its father, all of us, no matter the problems or difficulties we might have, can trust in God. But our trust in Him is even stronger than the child toward the parent because we are under the shelter of God’s wings. He protects everyone even more than parents take care of their child. Though the child feels carefree in its parents’ embrace, the person who has the certainty that God is in control will feel even more carefree –but not to the point that they will neglect their responsibilities. They will work, think, sweat, and get tired. None of these things eat away at a person. It is anxiety that eats away at and depletes a person. And today, anxiety is the primary issue that many people struggle with.
What you need to give to God is yourself
The person who trusts God has no trace of anxiety –we must be certain of this. You might be thinking, ‘But there are Christians who get stressed out to the point that they have to go to the doctor and take medicine, etc.’ What exactly should we conclude from this? That these people do not trust in God and we do?
It’s true, there are unhealthy situations. There are people whose framework and psyche are such that they tend to get anxious, agitated, and worried; they cannot relax, and everything annoys them. However, for these people, if ever they truly find God and truly trust in Him, these tendencies disappear, even though they are part of their framework or from whatever other cause. They are healed, and they relax. I really wonder how much money people today would give to ensure this rest, this peace, this serenity, this absence of anxiety.
They do not need to give money, though. What they need to give is themselves. This is what God wants. If we do not give ourselves to God but operate and conduct ourselves as though we are lords over our lives, we will never find rest but only anxiety.
We must freely give ourselves to God. He has everything under control. A person, as much as they are careful, as much as they try to prevent and calculate things, will always find themselves at a dead end. God has everything under control and arranges everything. If you give yourself to God, He will prevent you from suffering any anxiety –as if God would not come through for us! And even when things are going so wrong, and you think that you could lose everything at any given moment, you are with God and at peace. This is because for God neither death nor dead ends or anything like this exist.
This is why the person of God is not crushed or wounded as if others stab them. These things do not exist for the person of God. This should not seem strange to us. This person trusts in God. It is not that they will escape what others suffer from. They may suffer hunger, face danger, and get sick. But in the end, these things benefit them instead of creating anxiety, suffering, and hell in the soul. The difference here is that suffering does this person well. God has a way of allowing such things to serve them, just as servants and slaves serve their master.
The major problem with people today is that they cannot be alone with themselves
So why do we get anxious? If you have peace and rest in your soul, anxiety disappears. If you have God within you, if you trust in Him, anxiety disappears. It has no room. In other words, it does not exist. As Christians, we especially have no excuse to be anxious. The secular world has no clue about these things, so how can it help you? You see how people go out on the town to find some joy? They try to forget a little, to escape a little from themselves and to become intoxicated with this. But what kind of joy will they find this way? Is it ever possible for this to bring joy or peace? Is it ever possible for a person to be saved from worry in this way? Eventually they will have to face themselves again. It is only when a person reconciles with himself that things will go well, and they will be able to live with themselves. They will be able to keep endless company with themselves without having any problem and will then find peace. When a person is constantly chasing themselves, when they are afraid of being alone with themselves, how can they avoid anxiety and find peace?
This is the issue, the major problem with people today –they cannot be alone with themselves. This is why they run from silence, stillness, concentration, and healthy isolation. No, they must hear the radio, have to speak, to watch the television. If there is nothing else to do, they just go out on the balcony to look around. Perhaps a grandpa, the poor man, goes out on his balcony just to people watch –thousands of people pass under him; they come, and they go.
God created every person to have all creation, everything, inside their being, making each person a microcosm. Imagine how frightening it would be for a person to be in outer space, in the infinite darkness where there is no boundary in sight. They would practically feel like going crazy. A person feels just as frightened when they face themselves, the microcosm, the mini-universe that they are. But when they are with God, they are not scared at all. They are not afraid.
If we somehow hold these things as true, we can now understand how much people today live outside of reality. They are alienated, tainted; they have lost themselves and constantly live outside of themselves. This is a schizophrenic situation, as we say. This person cannot speak or conduct themselves correctly, but only thinks of their own well-being, and about wronging others. They will do whatever it takes to harm you. And it is understandable that since they are being eaten up inside, they will try to harm you too.
God stoops down over you and wants you to be sanctified
Question: I would like to ask something. If someone wants to live as they should but their surroundings are not in harmony with their way of life, what should they do?
Answer: Look, according to the things we have said, neither the surroundings nor anything else can hinder a person. The martyrs lived with so many threats –sword, fire– and no one could take Christ from them. No one can take Christ from us if we have trust in God. These things we are talking about may seem a little theoretical to you, but they are very practical.
Take the example of a person in a family. It could be a spouse, the father, mother, or one of the children who is trying to live a godly life. Everyone else goes against him, they are all opposed to him and there is no mutual understanding.
Now, practically speaking, what can this person do? But before we look at the practical side, let us look at it theoretically. In other words, we will look at it at its depth, in the light of God. This person in this family must believe, consider things, feel and live like this: God, the holy and man-befriending God, who has everything in control, knows everything. He knows each spouse, who each one is, He knows what each one thinks. God knows everything. I am not, therefore, alone there in that house with all those things I have to face. God is with me. He knows everything better than I do, and He wants even more than I do for me to not suffer anything, to not struggle or have difficulty, to not lose my faith, and to live a godly life. God wants these things much more than I do.
God is not some stranger. He is not like someone from the high ranks of society who we ask, beg, and then wait for, to help us. They say they will help us but do not, and they say that they will be concerned with us but never are. God is the first to be concerned about me, and then me about myself. He made me to be concerned about myself. But He is concerned first since He gave me life. And He knows who my mother is, who my father is, how they think, how they react –that they are restless, that they are non-believers, that they do not want to hear anything about God. God knows everything. Is it possible, then, for Him to forget me? No matter what goes on around me in my family, He wants me to live according to His will, according to His commandments. Since He wants this and says this, it is impossible for Him to not help me do this.
Also, it is impossible for God to exclude someone from salvation and holiness. It would be as though He would say: ‘You know! I am going to make this and that person saints. But you, I will only save you a little. I will only be interested in you a little, just a little.’ It is impossible for God to do this. He does not play favorites. We should never let a thought like this cross our mind. God is as concerned about you as He is about the Apostle Paul or even the greatest of saints. He stoops down over you and wants to sanctify you, just as He sanctified the greatest of saints. We need to pay attention to this fine point. When you are able to see things this way, you will accept whatever God allows. You will say, ‘Lord, You know everything and since You allow for things to be this way, may it be blessed.’ Once you take this approach you begin to see things differently, you confront them differently. But when you do not take this approach you experience difficulties and suffer.
We should take the martyrs in the early Church as an example. They were arrested and tortured in diverse ways and in the end, they were thrown to wild beasts or beheaded or stripped of their skin. None of the martyrs said, ‘Now, this is really difficult. It would have been better, things would have come out better for me, if I didn’t have to deal with these executioners, but with other ones who would not have tortured me this way but some other way!’ Inconceivable! Whatever happened, happened; that is it. And they firmly believed that God was with them and would support them, fortify them, and in this way, they would be able to give a good confession until the end –and this is exactly what happened.
If you take the path towards God, as bitter as the cup seems, it begins to become sweet
No one should ever say, ‘What am I to do? I have such a wife, such a spouse, I have such a father and such a mother! What am I to do that I am in such a family, with such relatives! On top of it all, I have to live in the pollution of Athens!’ No one should ever say anything like this. If you are able to go somewhere else but you stay where you are, you are at fault. But if you cannot move, if things cannot be any other way, then that is it, this is your life and God will be with you. You do not have to go find Him. He will come to find you there in the dungeon, in the basement, within the yelling that is heard when they scold you and treat you poorly. God Himself will come. God does not say, ‘Get yourself out of there and then come up to the mountain, to some desert, to the stillness so we can talk.’
Take, for example, a woman who has a spouse who drinks and gambles; who knows what else he does. It is possible that she herself is to blame for her situation because who knows why she married him –maybe because of some weakness. If she had had her eyes wide open she would not have taken this gambler. Forgive me for saying this in this way, but I have to emphasize that we make some mistakes because we move forward with our eyes closed and we even rush things. A young lady closes her eyes out of fear that things will not go quickly, and she will not be married off at the appropriate time. Sometimes the adults even advise her, ‘Close your eyes, my child, and marry him.’ Because she perhaps has some fault from the beginning, she will have to pay. Things do not just happen randomly to a person. Deep down there is something within them for which they are responsible, and this contributes to their situation.
In the situation of the woman with the alcoholic, gambler spouse, it is possible that her children could have some psychological illness, neurological illness, or be mentally ill –in the end these are all the same thing– and other such problems. If, however, this woman does not blame anyone and sees that she is at fault and takes the blame, hoping in the mercy of God, she will be sanctified.
In other words, she says, ‘Lord, I understand the mistake I made. I should not have gone through with this marriage. Now I remember well that I was moved by a weakness and I did not think about You. The only thing I wanted was to get married. And now this is the result. But I confess my mistake and know that I needed to go through these things I am going through now. I deserve to suffer. But You are a merciful God. I, as a human, made a mistake, I sinned. But since You are merciful, compassionate, and good and I believe, You will forgive me. I believe that within this situation You will sanctify my soul.’ Yes, she will be sanctified. This woman will be sanctified.
Papadiamantis[1] mentions in one of his narratives a situation where a woman was treated very poorly by her husband. He did not want her anymore and instead brought another woman to live in the same house. And his wife begged him, ‘At the very least, let me live here to take care of the house and the children.’ Yes, she had such courage. (But we must be careful here because such situations need discernment because someone could do this because they have issues. There are also times, such as this situation Papadiamantis relates, when someone does this as a result of divine enlightenment.) So, she stayed in the house and drank the bitter cup!
In the beginning the cup is bitter. But after you take the path towards God, you accept where He has placed you, you accept His will and His commandments, you experience that as bitter as the cup may seem in the beginning, later it becomes sweet. What joy is felt by those who we consider as being so unfortunate in this life! It is because they endure hardships in this godly way that their joy is so indescribable.
So, because of her trials, the woman in Papadiamantis’ story died quickly, she did not live a long life. When it was time to exhume her remains, they gave off a sweet fragrance. Her grave, her bones, they all smelled sweetly. At this point, her husband came to his senses and said, ‘Oh, my God! What have I done!’ and he repented and cried and mourned.
Godly sadness nourishes and enlarges the soul
Question: Say a person struggles because their children or spouse have problems, or because their surroundings are difficult or are not in accordance with the faith or are immoral. As much as this person endures is as much as they will be benefited by their struggle because God sees their struggle and helps and sanctifies them. But what can be done about the anxiety that eats away at them? They worry and say, ‘Maybe this person will not be saved, maybe they will become lost’ –meaning their spouse or child or parent or sibling.
Answer: Again, this is a mistake. In the case of your children, God cares about them more than you do. The same goes for your spouse, God cares about them more than you do. Does God not know what is going on? This, however, is human weakness. At some point either as a father, a mother, a brother, relative, or fellow human being, you do not just take care of and have concern for the person, but you share their pain and suffer with them. We could even say that you suffer martyrdom. But when this happens in a godly way, there is not only no anxiety, but the soul is literally sanctified.
We often say that godly sadness nourishes the soul. Have as much godly sadness as you want. But it is only the person who repents, cries, sheds bitter tears of repentance and not those of grievances, that is benefited. Some people, mostly women, come for confession sobbing. When this happens, I remain cold and insensitive. Once they see that I am not moved by their sobs they stop. Forgive me for saying this this way. Yes, they are sobbing. And this does no good. It is the other kind of sadness –soul-crushing tears, weeping, and pain of repentance– that nourishes the soul. But self-absorbed sadness, demonic sadness brings despair and eats away at the soul.
It is the same with anxiety. If the situation with your child is burning you and your soul is pained in a godly way, this is a holy thing for you and your child. But if this pain and sadness comes from weakness and self-love, then anxiety comes and eats away at your soul. Please be careful of this.
How many mothers suffer because their children took the wrong path? They are in so much pain over this. But why? Because these mothers had big dreams. They said what children still say to their parents, to their mother and father, ‘When I have kids of my own, you will see how well I will raise them! Not like you!’ So, the mother had a dream that when she would have a family, her own children, they would not be like the others. They would have the proper upbringing and be an example. But these children grew up to be the complete opposite of what she dreamed of and expected. This wounds her, exposes her, it humbles her and leaves her without even a moment of rest. She has anxiety day and night and is fortunate if any time is spared. And this anxiety, as we have said, eats away at the soul.
When someone begins to see things correctly, salvation comes immediately. Yes, in other words the person says, ‘Lord, what did I do? How could I have thought that way? What a huge mistake I made! As if I could have been the person who could have guided my children to salvation. You are the One who takes care of me and my children and everyone. I made a big mistake, Lord, to think of things in that way. I repent and ask for forgiveness. Forgive me and enlighten me to behave better from now on, as much as possible.’ Whenever someone begins to live this way, things completely change. This mother will still be concerned over her child, she may experience even more pain, she will be crushed, she will cry –even like the mother of St. Augustine did. But never ever will this weeping, and pain create anxiety in her soul. Amazingly it will nourish, water, enlarge, strengthen, and cleanse her soul.
If you want to discern when you have godly sorrow, pain and sympathy as opposed to when these feelings are not from God, it is revealed by the following: if you are completely occupied by anxiety then it is not from God. Impossible! Ultimately, anxiety is created because we do not get our way. Otherwise we are not anxious. You must believe this. When you are anxious and have whatever sort of anxiety it may be, from wherever it comes, just humble yourself and say, ‘Lord, may it be blessed. May things happen according to Your will.’ You leave everything to God, the anxiety immediately leaves, it disappears. It is like it does not exist. And this is because it truly does not.
Anxiety comes from whatever happens that is not according to my will. In other words, what I want is not happening and my self-love is not satisfied. There is no way a humble person can have anxiety. ‘Am I humble or not? Do I have humility or not?’ Someone may wonder such things from time to time without even understanding what this means. If you want to ascertain your spiritual state, by your anxiety you will understand. If you are anxious, you do not have humility. If you are not anxious, then either you are impassible, and nothing can bother you or you have humility. And, really, such people do exist.
Only the present exists
Question: One source of anxiety is the reality that we are so pressed for time. What can we do about this, Father?
Answer: As you know, time is here, and it is beyond us. Time is wherever we are, it is always with us. Here we also approach things the wrong way. Why should we be pressed for time? In a sense, time is non-existent. Only the present exists. At every moment, yes even now at this very moment, you can live as if neither the past nor the future exists. Did you ever sit with a clock in front of you and watch it? You would need to do this with your soul completely surrendered to God, peaceful and at rest. As the hand of the clock makes its cycle of one minute, you will feel as though a long time has passed, a very long interval of time. It is because of haste that a person feels that time escapes them. It escapes them, and their work does not get done. But why is a person in such a rush? In order to not look bad, to not be judged by others. Naturally, we know well that the person who rushes, in the bad sense of the word, stumbles. (Please, if there are some here who are slow-moving or have physical limitations, these things do not apply to you.) This should not mean, however, that this should be taken to the other extreme, and a person should try to be like those who act so calm, cool, and collected and can literally drive you crazy. No. A person must be full of life. But it is a fact that when someone does not rush they do their work better.
Once some university students from Thessaloniki asked me how they could find time to pray during their exams since their schedule was full of studying. I told them that they did not need to find time, but just to fill in their ‘empty’ time.
In order to make sure they understood me, I told them about the atom in molecular physics. Science teaches that the atom has a nucleus and is surrounded by electrons. The scientists know this about something invisible –it cannot be seen with the naked eye or a microscope. There is also an empty space between the nucleus and the electrons, which as we said, cannot be seen by any instrument. This is similar to astronomy –the sun is in the center surrounded by the planets; Earth, Mars, Pluto, and the others. These astronomical bodies, which take up a certain amount of space, along with the vastness, the boundless empty space, make up our solar system. The atom is similar in that it has a nucleus, electrons, and the empty space or vastness. However, even if you try to see this empty space, you never will. The atom itself is invisible, so how can the empty space be seen? But still, the atom has been discovered by scientists. In other words, it is not something fake, it is real. The atom is so extremely small but still contains an empty space, a vastness.
Now you can understand the gap that exists in our time! So, I told these students, as you sit and study perhaps you think, ‘Will I manage this or not? What will my instructor say to me? Will I manage to answer the questions? And if I fail, what will I tell my parents?’ You are consumed with anxiety. You are supposedly studying, but these thoughts attack you inside. If, however, you studied in a more carefree way, with more trust in God, without letting all of these things attack your soul and consume you, so much more time would be left in your ‘empty’ time. This is the time you would use to lift up your head a little to take a deep breath and say, ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’ If you say this with your heart, completely at ease, with a great deal of trust in God, this equals twenty-four hours of prayer.
We have a great deal of such ‘empty’ time that we can fill with prayer –from the moment we awake until the moment we go to sleep. When a person begins to trust in God, to be at ease, to be in communion with Him, they begin to live in a carefree way and their life becomes pleasant. It is not that they are unaffected by things that happen. No. They experience things but are never shaken. Thus, when they do their work, God is present. Wherever they work, prayer is present, everything is present. Now if they do not manage to finish some of their work, they are not bothered and leave it undone. They allow it to be completed the next day or not at all. They don’t care what people might think of them.
The point is that if we think of things this way we will not be so pressed for time and we will finish all of our work with time to spare. But if we think of things otherwise, we will not finish. We all know that a person can accomplish so many things when their heart, mind, and love are at peace, in order, and focused. When we love something, what can prevent us from doing it? When we want to accomplish something, who can get in our way? There would never be a situation where we would say, ‘I do not have the time.’ Never. And since I desire something, even if people get in my way or make me upset, nothing will stop me. I will succeed.
The secret is for a person to love God
The secret is for a person to turn towards God, to love God, to seek Him, to desire Him. All of these things begin with faith. Please do not ask me the same old question, ‘Where is God?’ People today ask, ‘Who has seen God? Where is He? I do not understand Him. My logic says this, and my logic says that.’ Do you see what we have become? We believe that we think the right way, that we approach things correctly, that we can put our life in order. But by doing this we make life into some kind of fairy tale, a myth.
Do you know what happens in the end? Let me explain it to you with an example. You give someone a nice big savory piece of grilled meat. This person looks at it and can only think about eating it, and suddenly only the bone is left in their hands. The meat is gone, lost, disappeared. Now they begin to lick the bone. But is it the same to lick the bone as it is to eat the meat? This is what life has become today. Especially young people today have stripped life so much, they have reduced it so much, that all that remains is the bone. They gnaw at it in order to get full, but the bone cannot fill them. Their life is so dry that it is not life at all. You can even find children, small ones only fifteen years old who say, ‘I cannot find any meaning in life.’ My child, how can you find any meaning if you take this approach? God fashioned us to love life. It is because of this love for life that someone could perhaps decide to not go through with suicide. Naturally, this is a good decision. But they instead run to cafés, clubs, parties, and drugs trying so hard to fill their life just a little. But life cannot be filled in this way. It is simply that this person is trying to forget that they are alive because they cannot stand living anymore. But why? Because only the bone remains. You will lick the bone once, twice, but cannot get full.
As time goes by, it becomes more and more clear that this is how things are today. This is why people find themselves continuously at a dead end, left only with anxiety and void of any peace.
June 20, 1985,
Athens