Everyday Affairs. How to Relate to Everyday Tasks So That They Do Not Distract but Can Be Combined With Service to God

I continue the discussion in response to your complaint about the disorder of your thoughts due to the occupations of daily life.

How can one be without work? That would be sinful idleness. One must do something and fulfill various household duties. This is your obligation. And it is impossible to cut off external relations entirely. They must be maintained, and maintained as they ought to be. This is the obligation of human community life. But all such affairs and occupations can and must be managed in such a way that they do not drive away the thought of God. How, then?

There is among us a belief—and one that is nearly universal—that as soon as you occupy yourself with something in the household or outside it, you step out of the realm of Godly and God-pleasing deeds. And so, when the desire to live in a God-pleasing manner arises, or a conversation about it begins, it is ordinarily joined to the thought that if that is so, then one must flee from society, flee from home to the wilderness, to the forest. Yet both conclusions are mistaken. The affairs of household and communal life, upon which the well-being of homes and communities depends, are affairs ordained by God—and to fulfill them is not to step out into a domain that is displeasing to God, but to walk in the deeds of God.

Holding this mistaken belief, people conduct themselves so that in all their household and communal affairs they take no care whatsoever to think of God. I see that this belief has power over you as well. Please cast it aside, and acquire the conviction that everything you do at home and outside—in the affairs of communal life, as a daughter, as a sister, as a Muscovite woman now—is God’s work and pleasing to God. For all that belongs to this sphere is covered by specific commandments. And how could the fulfillment of commandments be displeasing to God? By your mistaken belief you actually make them displeasing to God—because you fulfill them without the disposition with which God desires they be fulfilled. The deeds of God are performed by us in an un-Godly manner. They are thus wasted in vain, and moreover they drive the mind away from God.

Correct this, therefore, and from now on begin to do all such affairs with the awareness that there is a commandment to do them thus—and do them as one who is fulfilling a commandment of God. When you are so attuned, not one household affair will drive your mind away from God; on the contrary, it will draw it nearer to Him. We are all servants of God. To each He has assigned a place and a task, and He watches how each one fulfills it. He is everywhere. And He is watching over you. Hold this in mind, and do every task as though it had been entrusted to you directly by God—whatever that task may be.

Do your household tasks in this way. And when someone comes to you from outside, or when you yourself go out, keep in mind in the first case that God has sent this person to you and is watching whether you will receive and treat him in a Godly manner; and in the second—that God has entrusted you with a task outside the home and is watching whether you will do it as He wishes you to do it.

If you attune yourself this way, then neither household affairs nor those outside the home—nothing—will draw your mind away from God; on the contrary, everything will keep it with Him, as you consider how to do each task in a way pleasing to God. You will do everything with the fear of God, and this fear will maintain unceasing attentiveness to God.

As for what affairs—within the family and outside it—are pleasing to God, please clarify this for yourself thoroughly by taking up those books in which the duties proper to these matters are set forth. Clarify it thoroughly so that, among the present-day norms of household and social life, you may separate from what is truly proper everything that vanity, passion, people-pleasing, and world-pleasing have introduced into it. But from all of this, after the resolution you have declared to live in a God-pleasing way, you will of course withdraw even without special reminders.

In addition to the mistaken belief mentioned above, there attaches to our affairs yet another ailment—I will call it thus. This is anxiety. That every task acknowledged as proper must be done with full diligence—this is a duty, fenced about with a terrible warning: ”Cursed is everyone who does the work of God with negligence” (Jer. 48:10). But anxiety, or over-anxious care, gnawing at the heart and giving it no rest, is the sickness of the fallen person who has taken it upon himself to arrange his own fate and rushes about in all directions. It scatters the thoughts and even prevents them from concentrating on the very task that one is laboring over. So please look into this and, if you find that this anxiety sometimes overcomes you as well, take the trouble to drive it away and not give it free rein. Be diligent in your affairs and, doing them with all care, expect success from God—dedicating even the task itself to Him, however small it may be—while suppressing anxiety.

Do this—and your occupations and daily affairs will not draw you away from God. May the Lord help you!