The Awakened Resolve to Live Rightly Must Take Clear Shape as a Striving to Act in All Things According to God’s Will. The Peace and Joy of God’s Servants. A Warning Against the Half-hearted Resolve to Live for God. The Lukewarm Will Be Rejected by God

I have not heard whether you have begun your fast of preparation, or whether you are keeping it. Well, when you do begin it, everything written to you about the Lenten fast will prove useful. In the meantime I will add another word or two to clarify certain points. The subject is such that it cannot be fully portrayed in a few lines.

So then, let us suppose that you, having placed yourself within the framework of the fast—that is, the outward order of preparation—will at the same time examine yourself strictly according to the directions given, so that, having surveyed all your failings, you may then resolve to be in all things upright.

This expression—“to be upright”—needs to be clearly defined. This is the heart of the matter; without knowing what it means, one can make a serious mistake while believing all the while that the work is being done rightly.

To resolve to be upright. But in what way are we bad now? What is wrong with our conduct? I think you yourself have experienced this: when approaching confession, you do not know what to say—you cannot see in what way you have sinned. Why do you suppose that is? It comes from a lack of clarity about what our life ought to be, and about whether all our actions and thoughts are directed toward that end. Since this has not been clarified, when we look at our life in general and see that it presents nothing glaringly bad—just like everyone else’s—we remain at peace within ourselves, saying, or at least secretly feeling: “Well, what more could one ask?”

To prevent this from happening to you, everything written thus far has been written to that end. And if you act according to what has been set out, your tongue will no longer be able to say, “What more could one ask?” Let me hold your attention on this point a little longer.

The matter, as has already been mentioned more than once, is this. Our entire life, in all its particulars and details, must be consecrated to God. The general law is this: whatever you do, do it in accordance with the will of God and to please God, for the glory of His most holy name[1]. Every undertaking that presents itself must therefore be examined—whether it is in accordance with the will of God—and it should be undertaken only after one is assured that it truly is in accordance with that will, and carried out in the manner that God would have it done. Whoever always acts with such careful attention, and with such clear awareness that what he does is pleasing to God, cannot at the same time fail to be conscious that his life is on the right course—that even if his deeds are not brilliant or perfect, he has not consciously allowed anything in them that would offend God or be displeasing to Him. This consciousness fills his heart with a quiet peace born of a calm conscience, and with that spiritual joy which arises from the sense that he is not estranged from God—that, though he may not be great, eminent, or conspicuous, he is nonetheless God’s servant, striving in every way to please Him, directing all his efforts toward that end, and believing that God Himself sees him as such.

This is how everyone’s moral life ought to be. Yet in practice, how does it most often go? We live as things happen to come. This conscious, active direction of all one’s deeds—great and small—toward pleasing God is not present in the mind or intention. Our affairs flow along haphazardly, and whatever gets done is done mostly out of established habit, because everyone else does the same—without any assurance that these things are fit for the chief purpose of life.

Not long ago I mentioned to you about the spirit of life—that it is either God-fearing, or self-loving, or world-loving. And I forgot to add here a fourth: neither one thing nor the other, though I did point to this somewhere in passing[2]. Is it not the majority of people who live by this spirit? They seem to have nothing against God, yet they have no deliberate aim of pleasing Him. If, for instance, it happened to be convenient to go to church—they went; if not—it was no great trouble. And at home, when they pray, a bow or two—and that is that. And they are content. So it is with all things pertaining to God. They are not conspicuous egotists, yet whenever it comes to defending their own interests or excusing themselves from some self-sacrifice, they will always find a reason to sidestep it. They are not especially marked lovers of the world, yet they are not averse to joining the world in its worldly amusements. Such people are encountered constantly, everywhere. These are those who are indifferent to pleasing God and to salvation—neither warm nor cold. God turns away from them and rejects them.

Have you not belonged to this category until now? I think not entirely. Yet a large part of what you have done has been done because everyone in your circle does the same. But let us leave aside what you have been. I assure you that if you conscientiously fulfill everything set out for you, you will cease to resemble such people even in the slightest, and will begin to do all your deeds well-chosen and excellent. Not that there will be something remarkable on the outside, but those same deeds will take on a different hue, a different bearing, a different decorum and propriety. God grant it! From my whole soul I wish this for you. Having resolved to conduct everything according to the will of God and having begun to do so, you will certainly be overshadowed by inner peace—a calm of heart, bright, warm, and consoling, in which lies a paradise of the soul.

But for this to happen, you must acquire the resolve for such a life; for the resolve to come, you must feel the unworthiness of a life inattentive to the main thing (neither one thing nor the other), and the magnificent worth of an attentive life. And even that is not enough. You must grieve that, though you have not lived so very long, there is nonetheless a portion of that time that has been wasted. Contrition of heart over one’s failure before God is the support of the resolve to be upright before Him from this point on. Take care of all this now. May the Lord help you!

May the Lord, who orders the salvation of all who are saved by ways known to Himself, teach you how to set yourself on the course so that your life may not pass in vain—neither one thing nor the other—but may be pleasing to God, may bring you salvation, and may serve as the path to inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven!