You fix your gaze on compensation from a man, on money for your skin, for showers, for threats you have endured. But I ask you, have you given thanks to God for these very trials? When we are wronged, our first impulse is to cry out for justice against the offender, yet the Apostle teaches us to give thanks in all circumstances. In prosperity, gratitude is easy; but in extremities, to bless the Lord who permits suffering, there is the mark of a true Christian. For if you give thanks, your soul is bright, your conscience crowns you, and God is honored. The pain is cut short, and the devil, seeing he gains nothing, departs. But if you grumble and demand recompense as though God saw it not, your calamity is heightened, and you blaspheme the very Providence that trains you for eternity. Why do you cling to these passing things? Skin ailments and electric shocks are momentary; the torment of a soul fixed on earthly redress is unceasing.
You ask that the landlord’s conscience be awakened by the Holy Spirit. That is a good prayer, for the conscience is a tribunal which none escape. Yet beware, lest while you judge him, you neglect your own. The Apostle cries out against those who condemn another while committing the same sins. You call him an impostor, perhaps? An oppressor? But have you never wronged anyone, even in thought? Have you never held bitterness that itself is a shock to the soul? Instead of seeking payment, seek first your own cleansing. The time is short; the day is at hand. Let this trial become for you an occasion of repentance, not litigation. The landlord’s repentance, if it come, will be with tears, but not all tears prove a changed heart, only those that bear the fruit of amendment. So too for you: let your tears be over your own sins, not over the cost of shower passes.
I do not forbid you to ask God for relief, but rather to desire the true healing, which is of the inner man. Worldly compensation passes; the crown of patience endures. Pray, then, that both you and that man may escape the just judgment which awaits all unrepentant sinners, and that you may approach the holy table with a clean conscience, giving thanks in all things.