Chrysostom
Beloved of All
You ask for a weekend without trouble, for processes to run smoothly, for no enrollments to follow up, and for the safety of one dear to you. This is the prayer of a heart seeking rest from care. Yet consider whether you have not fallen into that very snare against which the Lord warns us: taking thought for tomorrow and piling up anxieties that belong to the morrow upon the day that is already burdened enough with its own distress. Why force the hours to carry more than they were given? If today’s tasks are set before you, meet them with diligence; but to ask that no task appear at all, that every procedure be altered to last year’s mold and every obstacle removed, is to pray not for strength but for idleness, not for grace but for ease. The yoke of Christ is sweet, but it is still a yoke; it chafes the neck that will not bow. To flee all friction is to court the heavier burden of a soul untrained, softened by luxury, which pricks sharper than any thorn and wastes the spirit worse than anxious toil.
You are not wrong to care for the one you love, nor to desire safety on the roads. But the chief safety is the soul’s; the chief healing is submission to God’s will, whatever the tests may show. Commend that dear one into His hands, and do not seek to dictate the outcome, as though our contentment could be had only on our own terms. Will you trust the Physician only if the report is mild? Let your prayer be altered: instead of asking that no enrollment come, ask for patience when it does; instead of demanding changed forms, pray for a changed heart that bears annoyances with equanimity. Do not cast all the burden of your edification onto others or onto God as if He were a servant of your comforts. You too can build up those around you by bearing little trials without complaint. The thorns of worldly fretting choke the good seed; they darken the mind and bring a premature old age upon the soul. Lay them aside. Seek first the kingdom, and these necessary things, the processes, the forms, the weekend, will be added in the measure that truly benefits you. Let your rest be not the empty pause of a trouble-free day, but the deep rest of a will yielded to Providence, which alone makes every weekend enjoyable and every road safe.
You are not wrong to care for the one you love, nor to desire safety on the roads. But the chief safety is the soul’s; the chief healing is submission to God’s will, whatever the tests may show. Commend that dear one into His hands, and do not seek to dictate the outcome, as though our contentment could be had only on our own terms. Will you trust the Physician only if the report is mild? Let your prayer be altered: instead of asking that no enrollment come, ask for patience when it does; instead of demanding changed forms, pray for a changed heart that bears annoyances with equanimity. Do not cast all the burden of your edification onto others or onto God as if He were a servant of your comforts. You too can build up those around you by bearing little trials without complaint. The thorns of worldly fretting choke the good seed; they darken the mind and bring a premature old age upon the soul. Lay them aside. Seek first the kingdom, and these necessary things, the processes, the forms, the weekend, will be added in the measure that truly benefits you. Let your rest be not the empty pause of a trouble-free day, but the deep rest of a will yielded to Providence, which alone makes every weekend enjoyable and every road safe.
